Class, 
Book._ 
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.£21 



COFsMGHT DEPOSIT. 



A NATION AT BAY 




Until S. Faniani 



A NATION AT BAY 

What an American Woman 
Saw and Did in Suffering Serbia 



BY 

RUTH S. FARNAM 



WITH THIRTY ILLUSTRATIONS 

Many of them from Photographs 
Taken by the Author 



INDIANAPOLIS 

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



Copyright, 1918 
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 






m 25 IS 18 



PRESS or 

BRAUNWORTH gi C<X 



BOOK MANUFACTURERS ^ Q 

BROOKLYN. N. V. , , ^ J^ 

)GI.A4i>9l09 1 



'I'^b i 



TO THE 

DEVOTED WORKERS 

WHO LIVED AND SUFFERED 
AND DIED IN SERBIA 



CONTENTS 



CBAPTXB rAGB 

I. A Backward Glance .... 1 
II. My First Introduction to War in 

Serbia 11 

III. A Glance at the Country of Our 

Game Little Ally .... 24 

IV. The Plot 45 

V. The Debacle 50 

VI. Hells on Earth 57 

VII. The Call 66 

VIII. Through Beautiful Serbia . . 78 

IX. At Work 88 

X. Austrian Prisoners .... 96 

XI. The Return 103 

XII. Doing My Bit in England and Amer- 
ica 112 

XIII. Through the War Zone . . .119 

XIV. Eastward Ho! 130 

XV. Salonika 148 

XVI. Off to the Front . . . .155 

XVII. " The American Unit "... 163 

XVIII. Approaching the Battle Line . 174 

XIX. The Battle 185 

XX. How I Became a Soldier . . . 193 

XXI. The Return 203 

Appeal of the Serbian Women to All So- 
cieties OF Women .... 221 

vii 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



FACING 
PAGE 



Photograph used by the author on passports . 12 

Convalescents at Madame Grouitch's Hospital 
in Belgrade, 1913 13 

General Michael Rashitch, Leader of Serbian 
Army in Retreat over Albanian Mountains . 42 

Refugees at Iben 43 

Red Cross Hospital Ship " Sphinx " . . .60 

English home of the author 61 

Outfitting refugee children in Macedonia with 
clothing from America 74 

Mountains over which the Serbians retreated . 75 

Hyia 86 

Austro-Slav prisoners at Ghev Gelya . . 87 

Quay at Salonika 98 

Place Liberte, Salonika, (four o'clock any day!) 99 

Recent victims of gas bombs dropped from 
enemy aeroplanes on Monastir . .110 

Princess Alexis in the store-room at Vrintze 111 

Bringing in sick civilians at Vrynatchka Banya 122 

Prince George of Serbia, Admiral Troubridge 
and the author 123 

Bulgarian dead 134 

Bulgarian trenches near Brod . . . .135 

Emily Louisa Simmonds 146 

ix 



X ILLUSTRATIONS 



FACINQ 
PAOB 



Crown Prince's Headquarters near Brod . . 147 

Colonel Doctor Sondermayer .... 158 

The White Tower, Salonika 159 

Major Doctor Gelibert at Salonika and Surgeons 
of Scottish Woman's Hospital . . . .170 

Wounded being brought in on mule-back . . 171 

Voivode Mishitch, Prof. Reiss and Lieut. Pros- 
kowetz . . . 180 

Serbian Field Hospital Camp at Vrbeni. Rich- 
ard Wainwright, Lieutenant Proskowetz, 
Emily Louisa Simmonds 181 

Taken during the battle of Brod. Commander- 
in-Chief Voivode Mishitch, Com. of Morava 
Div. Col. Milovanovitch, Chief of Medical 
Service Col. Dr. Sondermayer and the author 194 

Czerna Bend, from H. Q. O. P 195 

Eleutherios Venizelos, Greek Premier . . 208 

Vodena 209 



PREFACE 



My readers will see why I cannot send this 
little book forth without at least craving their 
indulgence. Since it is my first Book it will doubt- 
less have many faults but in it I have tried to ex- 
press the deep emotions, the admiration and the 
respect which the sight of Serbia's great courage 
has aroused in me; the experiences that I have 
had in that beautiful, suffering country and, above 
all, to pay tribute to the noble men and women 
of England, France and America who volunteered 
to work among those unhappy people. Men and 
women who served unfalteringlj^ amidst the most 
deadly dangers and who, in many cases, laid down 
their lives while aiding those Serbian heroes who 
themselves counted life as naught when sacrificed 



xii PREFACE 

for flag and country. Because my whole heart 
is in this book I offer it to a generous Public 
with the hope that it may increase the awakening 
interest in our spendidly brave and devoted ally, 
Serbia. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

I am indebted to the works of Voislav Savic, 
Chedomille Myatovitch and R. W. Seton Watson 
for historical data. I also wish to gratefully 
acknowledge the kindness of Richard Wainwright, 
Esq., in loaning me many of the photographs with 
which this volume is illustrated. 

The Author. 



A NATION AT BAY 



A NATION AT BAY 



CHAPTER I 
A Backward Glance 

We Americans as a nation have never exhibited 
a great deal of interest in European affairs. One 
might say that we were almost provincial in this 
regard, isolated, as we are, by the vast expanse 
of ocean. To many of us Europe has been re- 
garded merely as a place to visit for pleasure or 
business. 

Such places as Serbia and the other Balkan 
States were of no more interest to us than Siberia 
or Arabia. We heard of them seldom, except 
when they were at war. And the impression pre- 
vailed that these "half-civilized" countries spent 
most of their time fighting with one another. 

We were so wrapped up in our own affairs that 



2 A NATION AT BAY 

we had no place in our thoughts for those distant 
lands. But we forgot that our horizon was rapidly 
enlarging. The fast ocean steamers, the cables, 
the expansion of our foreign trade — all these 
things were quickly bringing the far-off peoples 
closer to us. And the time came almost before we 
knew it when the internal aJffairs of almost every 
country in the world affected us in some vital way. 

Yet even after the outbreak of the European 
War we still felt that we had no national interest 
in it — that we were not affected — that it was none 
of our affair. In fact it was only after repeated 
insults and actual acts of war committed against 
us that we reluctantly consented to enter the con- 
flict. Perhaps the bungling German intrigue in 
Mexico and Japan did more toward awakening us 
to our peril than anything else. 

When Austria declared war on Serbia on July 

28, 1914, it was at Germany's bidding — and Ger- 

"1^' I many reckoned on a great world conflagration as 

the outcome. She had played the game of political 

1 chess over and over again in secret, with Austria, 
Turkey and Bulgaria as the pawns, and she had 



\ 



A BACKWARD GLANCE 3 

(proved to her satisfaction that she could win the 
game when the time came to play it in public. 

The United States was taken into consideration 
— ^just as surely as was France, Russia and Eng- 
land — before the ultimatum was delivered to Ser- 
bia. And yet we went about our affairs entirely 
unaware of any plan to include us in the great 
game of world domination. Who in America in 
July, 1914 could foresee that the result of the 
first shot fired on Serbia would be the sending of 
millions of our own boys to Europe — even to 
Serbia — to save civilization.'* 

And now that we are in it to a successful con- 
clusion, having joined hands with all the other 
countries fighting Germany and her accomplices, 
we are becoming intimately acquainted with all of 
our Allies. We are meeting even the less-known 
ones in their own homes, so to speak, and are be- 
ginning to feel that they are real human beings 
like ourselves, whose acquaintanceship we are 
sorry we had not, cultivated long ago. 

Serbia, who^^e may have at one time charged 
with starting the war, now appears to us in a dif- 



4 A NATION AT BAY 

ferent light altogether. By a backward glance at 
Serbia we may learn for ourselves a little about 
the peculiar sequence of events which culminated 
in this war — and get a few new glimpses of a 
history which has been to us hitherto either utterly 
unknown or merely a half-told tale. 

Many years have elapsed since the Austro- 
Hungarian Government began to trade upon the 
innate loyalty of the Serb. When Turkey rolled 
her hordes over the famous Field of Kossovo in 
1389, and overwhelmed the Serbian Armies, tak- 
ing possession of the land and crushing Christian- 
ity under her iron rule, the Serbs looked to Aus- 
tria as a nation of fellow-Christians for aid. This 
aid Austria pretended she would give while she 
was for centuries really fostering ill feeling be- 
tween the Balkan Slavs and Russia, thinking thus 
to increase her own influence and bring under her 
Empire all of the Serbians, many of whom had 
already settled in Austria-Hungary. 

Jealousy of Russia and greed of extended 
power were her motives for assuming a friendly 
mask toward the Serbs. But she did not hesitate 



A BACKWARD GLANCEi 5 

to cast this mask aside as soon as it suited her 
to do so. After many yetjrs of oppression of her 
own Slav subjects, she began an active policy of 
annexation and one after another Bosnia, Croatia, 
Herzegovina and Dalmatia were obliged to bow to 
her rule. Having a secret understanding with 
King Milan of Serbia, she plotted to destroy Rus- 
sia's influence in the Balkans and soon succeeded 
in rousing Bulgaria to defy her great protector, 
Russia, whom the only half-educated Bulgarian 
politicians suspected of wishing to hold their 
country as a Province. 

Prince Alexander of Battenberg, who had been 
placed on the throne of the new Kingdom of Bul- 
garia, began to plan for the union of divided Bul- 
garia, whereupon the Serbian King, Milan, im- 
rf mediately declared war upon him. Thus Austria's 
well laid plot had succeeded. She was able to play 
off one country against the other to her own ad- 
vantage; her ambition being to gain more terri- 
tory in the direction of Salonika, or even perhaps 
to possess that part of Macedonia in its entirety. 
As this war resulted disastrously for King 



6 A NATION AT BAY 

Milan, he appealed to Austria, who intervened and 
exacted a fearful price. This price was a secret 
allegiance whereby King Alexander, Milan's son 
and successor, became entirely a tool of Austria. 

The Serbians now found their ancient Constitu- 
tion set aside and Teutonic influence rampant in 
the land — for we must not forget that in recent 
years Prussia has always been behind the central 
European intrigues. The people murmured, and 
struggled to disengage themselves from the Octo- 
pus-like tentacles which were strangling them. 
Their effort at last culminated in the terrible 
tragedy at Belgrade in June, 1903, when the un- 
happy Alexander and his Avife, Draga, met their 
doom at the hands of a few stern and uncom- 
promising men, who had been driven to despera- 
tion by the sight of their country's impending 
ruin. 

Under the rule of the new King, Peter Kara- 
georgevitch, who was placed on the throne after 
the death of Alexander, Serbia began to recover 
herself, and her devoted people to know once more 
the advantages of liberty and the blessings of at 



A BACKWARD GLANCE 7 

least some measure of peace. Schools began to 
spring up in the villages, and manufactures of 
many kinds flourished; but jealous Austria, ma- 
lignant Turkey and_ treach erous Bulgar ia lay 
, ever in wait at her gates. 

j Then in 1912 came the war with Turkey. After 

/ this Austria prepared to attack Serbia, and only 

1 postponed doing so because of her inability to 

Vsecure the consent and co-operation of Italy. 

But Bulgaria, thirsting for revenge because she 

had not received what she considered her share 

of the spoils in Macedonia and secretly abetted 

by Austria-Hungary, attacked the little nation 

and, it is needless to say, was well thrashed for 

her pains. 

By this time Serbia was fully awake to her 
danger. She sharpened her sword, she filled her 
munition depots, collected stores and equipped 
her armies. She could see looming before her a 
great war, waged by the three countries which 
were bent on her extermination. Dauntless and 
ready, facing these enemies, many times her own 
size, brave Serbia stood — a Nation at Bay. 



8 A NATION AT BAY 

In July 1914 the expected attack came. How 
she fought in this war, which since then has em- 
broiled practically the entire world; how she 
fought and won again, then for a time lay helpless 
under the lash of a pestilence, shunned in that 
dark hour by her enemies, then rose to her feet 
weak and tottering again gallantly to face the foe ; 
how the traitor, Bulgaria, came slinking to share 
the spoils, and how devoted Serbia fought and 
strove, calling vainly for the western Allies to 
come to her aid; how at last these friends pre- 
vailed upon her army to evacuate the beloved 
country that it could no longer hold — to take 
refuge under the wings of these Allies until its 
awful wounds could be bound up and its starving 
soldiers fed, rearmed and reclothed that they 
might return by a new route and fight again for 
the freedom and honor of Serbia — this story of 
courage and sacrifice, of suffering and devotion, 
will fill many pages of history for future genera- 
tions. 

My own country is now at war with Germany 
and Austria and though I am a member of the 



A BACKWARD GLANCE 9 

Royal Serbian Army I am also a true American. 
I know what our boys will have to face and I 
know, too, that they are as brave as any other 
soldiers of the Allied Nations — and now they have 
the opportunity to prove it. They will face a 
cruel, cunning, desperate foe — and they will con- 
quer and drive him back — yes, back to Berlin. 
Worthy of our highest traditions will our Army 
prove itself. Worthy of that flag which we all 
love — the Flag on which the stripes represent our 
National Honor, which has never yet been 
stained. Those crimson bands which were dyed 
a deeper red by our fathers' blood on the battle- 
field: while that field of midnight blue — not so 
dark, alas! as the night of pain which now pre- 
vails in Europe — holds the shining stars of our 
National Ideals. 

Today there can be no such word as "pacifist." 
We are at war. Men and women who live under 
the protection of the American Flag and claim 
the privileges of American citizenship can be only 
one of two things — Patriot or Traitor ! That we 
should uphold our Government in its effort to 



10 A NATION AT BAY 

bring this war to a speedy and successful con- 
clusion, that we should each one of us do our 
share cheerfully and gladly to that end: that we 
should avoid destructive criticism, placing our- 
selves at the disposal of our great Chief Executive 
as the indispensable cogs of the great machine of 
State — this is our clear and bounden duty. 

If we Americans, each and all, do our duty soon 
it will be no longer heroic Serbia who is "The 
Nation at Bay" but "Germany at Bay!" May 
we so wage this, our war, as to prove by sword 
and Right that as our fathers fought for our 
freedom so shall we fight until the Blonde Beast 
Prussia is finally crushed and the World set free 

forever. 

m * * 

In this little book I have tried to tell something 
of the small part I played in this great fight ; how 
I, a stranger, knowing little of the country and 
less of its people, was impressed by its heroism 
and devotion and was finally caught up in the 
whirl of its magnificent struggle against the evils 
which my own country now is prepared to attack. 



CHAPTER II 

My First Introduction to War in Serbia 

"It reminds me," I said, "a little of Naples with 
the beggars lying about in the sunshine." 

"There are no beggars here," replied Madame 
Grouitch. "These are sick soldiers, just back 
from the war, and there is no place in the city 
where they can be taken in." 

On leaving the station in Belgrade, I saw num- 
bers of men in their dust-colored rags, sitting on 
the steps or lying on the ground under the trees. 
In my ignorance I had mistaken them for beggars. 
A broiling sun poured its rays down on them, and 
sometimes a man would moan and feebly roll over 
to gain the welcome shade of a stunted tree. I 
was told that at night the carts would go around 
and gather up the dead. Every hospital was full 
to overflowing and nearly every house had as its 
honored guests, sick and wounded soldiers. 

11 



12 A NATION AT BAY 

This was in August, 1913. I had been in Serbia 
before, during the Turkish war, and when I 
received an invitation at this time to come to Bel- 
grade to see the return of the victorious Serbian 
Army after defeating Bulgaria in the Second Bal- 
kan War, I went gladl3^ 

Madame Grouitch, who is a charming American 
womaij from Virginia and the wife of a Serbian 
diplomat, was doing marvelous work for her 
adopted country. Unable to bear the thought of 
these heroic men exposed to such suffering, after 
their splendid campaign, she went to the Govern- 
ment and demanded that one of the school build- 
ings be turned over to her during the vacation. 
In this large school she founded an auxiliary hos- 
pital, which was called "The 22d Reserve Hos- 
pital." She went to the merchants and towns- 
people and asked for beds and other furnishings. 
Then she had the sick and dying men gathered 
up and laid on these beds, under a roof for the 
first time in many months. 

Because the people of Belgrade had previously 
given nearly all they had, the fitting out of this 




Photograph used by the author on passports 



INTRODUCTION TO WAR IS 

hospital was of the crudest description. The beds 
on which the fevered soldiers lay were simply the 
iron frames with three pieces of board laid across. 
On this comfortless foundation were placed large 
sacks filled with straw. Smaller sacks formed the 
hard pillows. 

There was no bed linen and no clean cloth- 
ing. In the city there was a college, in which 
young orphan girls from every part of Sei'bia 
were being trained as teachers. So we sent 
up there and to the extent of our funds, we got 
sheets and pillow cases, of coarse cotton, and 
shirts and drawers for the men. 

These garments served a double purpose since 
they could be used first as hospital clothing and 
later when a man left the hospital he had only to 
add the heavy socks and untanned leather sandals, 
a home-spun waistcoat and wide girdle to be com- 
pletely clad in the peasant manner. 

One day a large bag was brought into the 
*'Gymnasium," one of the wards, and its contents 
dumped on the floor. There were about a dozen 
garments in the heap and it was hard to tell which 



U A NATION AT BAY 

were coats and which trousers, they were so 
ragged and worn. All were stiff with dirt and 
great blackish stains of blood. Clean-edged cuts 
of bayonet thrusts were there and jagged holes 
told of more terrible wounds. Not a garment was 
fit for use. 

One bo3' of twenty looked at a particularly 
Ghapcless rag and said cheerfully, "Yes, that was 
my coat. Luckily I will only need two-thirds of 
it anyway, now." His right arm was gone! 

It was very hot and there was a glare of liglit 
from the high uncurtained windows and the flies 
were so awful that the men could only sleep by 
burying their faces in the hard, hot pillows. 
Most of the younger men, however, were appa- 
rently as cheerful as if they had no care in the 
world; but some of the older ones lay patiently, 
day after day, looking at us with great hopeless 
eyes that pierced our hearts. Many had lost an 
arm or a leg and their minds could only ponder 
on how their wives and families were to live and 
bear this extra burden. Serbian families are as 
a rule very large and the people are very poor. 



INTRODUCTION TO WAR 15 

and all must work hard, so a maimed man knows 
himself to be a sad drag. 

But no man uttered one word of complaint and 
none regretted his sacrifice for Mother Serbia. 
Their gratitude for anything we could do for 
them was touching, though they were absolutely 
frank in their comments. 

One day, under the tuition of a young Serbian 
orderly, I made Turkish coffee for the men. They 
are very fond of it and will drink large quantities 
of the syrupy stuff. When the little cups had 
been drained, I proudly asked, "Was it good?'* — 
thinking to be commended. 

"Not very," came the reply. It was several 
days before a chorus of "Dobro," (Good) re- 
warded my efforts and they seemed really pleased 
for my sake that they could at last approve. 

We had only the coarsest food, in most cases 
only rather drj^ bread, and occasionally a 
vegetable stew, but as long as we could supply 
them with cigarettes, almost the breath of life to 
the Serbian soldier, they were contented. 

When I had been in Belgrade two days, the Red 



16 A NATION AT BAY 

Cross unit which had been serving in the hospital, 
was withdrawn and shortly after sailed for Eng- 
land. This left Madame Grouitch with two 
trained nurses, Dr. Shuler, a young English sur- 
geon who had gone to the Balkans to gain experi- 
ence before settling down to practice, two Serbian 
medical students, and a number of ladies and young 
girls, belonging to Belgrade society, but with little 
training (as we understand it), to care for one 
hundred and sixtj^-eight men, most of them suffer- 
ing from neglected and gangrenous wounds. Mad- 
ame Grouitch was herself so worn out with her 
unremitting efforts in the hospital that she nearly 
broke down. 

However, she was not the kind to give in, so in 
a little while she began to arrange the duties 
among her small group of workers. But try as 
she would, her insufficient but willing staff could 
not quite cover even the absolutely necessary 
,work. 

I listened and wanted to help, but as I had 
no training at all, had never even been with sick 
people and had practically never seen blood, I did 



INTRODUCTION TO WAR 17 

/ not feel very competent. Still, I was only too 

I willing to do what I could, and offered to run 

/ errands, or "hand things," or obey any orders 

I from any one. Madame Grouitch looked at me 

I critically. 

"Wliere we really must have help is in the oper- 
ating room," was her tentative suggestion. "Some 
one must be there to wait on the surgeon." 

The thought made mc feel rather queer, but 
I said, "Let me try." She did. 

The first case was a pretty bad one, but I made 
up my mind to do the best I could, and I got 
through without much trouble. 

But the next case proved too much for me. 
We had a man whose head had been broken by a 
piece of shell and he was, in consequence, com- 
pletely paralyzed. There was some growth on his 
back, just by the shoulder, which had to be 
removed and I had to hold him in my arms to keep 
him in the proper position during the operation. 
We had no anassthetics. There was no money 
with which to buy them. The poor fellow was 



18 A NATION AT BAY 

in a fearful state of nerves as he lay in my 
arms, screaming, but unable to move a muscle. 

The feeling of his bare body on my bare arms, 
his screams, his breath, the odor of blood and the 
sound of the knife softly passing through the 
flesh were at last too much for me. I managed 
to stand it until the operation was over and then 
I went into the open air and was deathly sick. 
Five minutes later I apologized to Dr. Shuler and 
said I would be braver next time; and though it 
y/as a struggle sometimes, I was able to go on from 
that time without further mishap. 

At the end of two days I was allowed to dress 
amputations. I would take off the dressings. 
Dr. Shuler would look over from his patient on 
the table and say, "Swab that with number two." 
I'd do it. Then I would rebandage the stump. 
The soldier would murmur, "Fala, sestro," 
(thanks, sister) and hobble off on his crude 
crutches. Sometimes the tortured nerves of the 
patient would be too much for him, and he would 
lay his poor head on my arm and plead, "Polako, 
sestro," (gently, sister) while great beads of 



INTRODUCTION TO WAR 19 

sweat would stand out on his forehead. But usu- 
ally they were so brave that it makes me proud to 
think that I was allowed to do what I could to 
help them. No one who has worked with the 
Serbian soldiers has anything but the warmest 
praise for them. They are patient, gentle, proud 
and brave. 

There was in that hospital many a boy of 
twenty with a gangrened wound for each year of 
his life. They would lie on their stretchers out- 
side the door of the operating room, awaiting 
their turn, with their great eyes clouded with pain 
and misery. They would go upon that rude 
plank operating table with their thin hands 
clenched to help them bear the ordeal. We would 
put a lighted cigarette into their mouths and they 
would undergo the awful probing and draining of 
their sickening wounds without one murmur or 
moan — though I sometimes would put my hand 
over their eyes because I could not bear the look 
of agony in them. 

The courage and marvelous endurance of the 
Serbian soldier is a memory that will often, I be- 



20 A NATION AT BAY 

lieve, uphold rae and many, many others who 
have worked among them, when things seem too 
hard to bear. 

Madame Grouitch was wonderful during these 
days. Not over strong herself, she was never too 
tired to soothe and comfort a feverish or suffering 
man. One day, just as she had declared she 
could not hold up her head anotlier minute, some 
one came in from the street and asked if she could 
manage to give a ver}^ sick man a bed in which 
to die. He was brought in — a piteous sight, 
ragged, filthy, his beard and mustache matted 
together over his mouth and his dark skin gray 
with a deathly pallor. 

"Then there is no hope for him?" asked 
Madame Grouitch. 

"He cannot have eaten or drunk for days and 
there is not one chance in a hundred," was the 
reply. 

"We shall see," she said, and took scissors 
and ripped away the ragged garments, the matted 
hair was cut from his face and with warm water 
she bathed the wasted bod}^ then sat down beside 



mXRODUCTION TO WAR 21 

him to fight with death. From time to time she 
forced drops of beef tea or brandy through the 
blue lips and hour after hour she sat waving a fan 
over his face to stir the sultry air and drive away 
the swarming flies. Her own fatigue forgotten, 
she waited, and many hours later had the joy of 
knowing that the man would live. 

On returning to my hotel one day, after finish- 
ing my duties at the hospital, I noticed a small 
group of people standing about a shop window. 
I stopped to see what was exhibited, and found 
that it was not the window that was attracting 
attention but a broad shouldered young man who 
stood before it. 

He was obviously a soldier. But when I got 
a full view of him I realized afresh that war, 
indeed, is hell. He had been captured by the Bul- 
garians during a fight on the Eastern front and 
afterward had been liberated and sent back to his 
regiment with hands bound. His ears, nose, lips 
and e3'elids had been cut off. He had been scalped 
in such a manner that only a strip of hair, running 



22 A NATION AT BAY 

from the middle of his head to the nape of his 
neck, in parody of a parting, remained. 

Sick and trembling, I turned into the door of 
the hotel and the impression I had received made 
it impossible for me to sleep with any degree of 
comfort for man}- nights to come. 

In talking with a Serbian officer some days later 
I happened to speak of this case and found that 
he was thoroughly familiar with it. Indeed he 
showed me a photograph of the young man, a 
handsome fellow, taken for his sweetheart before 
he left for the front. 

It is not my intention to fill these pages with 
such horrible stories, but there were dozens and 
dozens of such cases as those described that came 
under my personal observation during my work 
in the hospital. Bulgaria was certainly a fitting 
Ally for the Hun to select in this World's War. 

You must remember that up to this time I had 
lived a calm and peaceful life, such as most Amer- 
ican women live. Horrors, bloodshed, atrocities 
had never before entered my life or my mind. I 
question whether I could even have read of them 



INTRODUCTION TO WAR 23 

in the papers, and, if I had done so, I should have 
hesitated to beheve that such things were possible. 

But here, in war torn Serbia, my education in 
the grimness of war began. 

On my return to England, where I was then liv- 
ing, after my work in Belgrade was completed, 
I felt that I was a different woman. Above all, 
there had come over me a feeling of the highest 
regard for that brave little nation, Serbia, and 
its gallant and heroic people. 



CHAPTER III 

A Glance at the Country of our Game Little 
Ally 

Belgrade, the capital, before the war was full 
of curious contrasts : handsome, modern buildings 
and the rudely cobbled streets ; peasants in gayly 
embroidered clothing and ladies in Parisian 
frocks ; smart officers on beautiful horses and farm 
cart drawn by great creamy oxen. 

The town stands high above the junction of the 
Danube and Save Rivers, and from Scmlin, the 
Austrian frontier town, it looks like a hanging 
garden. After the flat plains of the approach to 
Hungary, the thick trees crowning the old fortifi- 
cations are most grateful to the eye, and the gray 
walls of the prison-like fortress, with the white 
towers of the cit}^, make an unforgettable picture. 

On the principal streets are many fine shops, 
24 



A GLANCE AT THE COUNTRY 25 

banks and business houses. The Konak or Royal 
Palace is a beautiful cream-colored building, set 
among trees and grassy terraces, while in the side 
streets are handsome residences, side by side with 
white cottage-like buildings, rather dark and ill- 
ventilated, in which the large families of the less 
progressive people live. 

The sons and daughters of the well-to-do Serbs 
are usually given the advantage of a j-car or two 
of study in Vienna or Paris, and are particularly 
adept in learning foreign languages. The well 
educated Serb speaks German, of course, since the 
country adjoins Austria, and generally Russian, 
which the Serbian tongue strongly resembles. To 
these he adds French, and often English. Even 
the peasant, given the opportunity to educate 
himself, will frequently become a lawyer, doctor, 
scientist or writer, and it is little exaggeration to 
say that all Serbs are poets. 

They are very proud and independent, and in 
spite of the fact that they live under a monarchy, 
they are the most democratic people I know. 
The Constitution of Serbia proclaims that "the 



26 A NATION AT BAY 

King is to reign by the will of the people." In 
other words, if he displeases the people they may 
choose another in his stead. His eldest son does 
not of necessity reign after him. 

By the Constitution of Serbia every man was 
entitled to five acres of land, two draught oxen, a 
certain number of pigs, fowls and some household 
furnishings, and these are his by inalienable right 
and cannot be taken from him even for debt. On 
this land and with these goods he must raise 
everything that he and his family eat, drink, use 
or wear. 

There is very little money in circulation in 
the country districts, and when the family needs 
a cooking pot or other utensil it is acquired at the 
weekly market in the town by the barter of a 
fowl, some eggs, or a flitch of home-cured bacon. 
The women spin and weave the flax and wool, and 
make the beautiful, simple clothing worn by the 
family. They embroider these garments with 
silk and worsted, and many of them are real 
works of art and are handed down from one gen- 
eration to another. 



A GLANCE AT THE COUNTRY 27 

Serbia is now entirely an agricultural country, 
eighty per cent of the population living on and by 
their farms. Prizes are given to the farmers by 
a well organized agricultural society and the pay- 
ment of taxes is usually made in produce. Every 
farmer gives annually a few days' labor to the 
State. 

The farmers have all the sturdy qualities and 
virtues which come from close contact with 
Mother Earth. They are frugal, intelligent and 
industrious ; all have poetry in their very souls. 
They are a peaceable, domestic people, devoted to 
their children and their homes, but they do not 
hesitate a moment to fight when those homes are 
threatened. 

An odd custom has survived from the long 
Turkish occupation. When a peasant is obliged 
to introduce his wife to a foreigner he does 
it after this fashion: "This, may your honor 
forgive me, is my wife." But this attitude toward 
her is only for the outside world, for their family 
life is full of affection. 

The peasant house is a low, white-walled, red- 



28 A NATION AT BAY 

tiled structure with its windows and doors on one 
side. These being the only inlets for light and 
air, the houses are usually dark and stuffy, but 
each house is whitewashed inside and out fre- 
quently. 

The Serbian family often pools its resources 
and forms a sort of community dwelling, 
called a "Zadruga." This consists of a large cen- 
tral house in which the heads of the family and 
the unmarried members live. Surrounding this 
are smaller cottages, called "Vayat," in which the 
married sons and their families live. The ruling 
member, or "Stareshina," of the house apportions 
the work each day and settles all disputes. Thus, 
if there were few very wealthy families in Serbia, 
before the invasion, there was no utter want and 
no beggars. 

The country is very beautiful, with rolling hills 
and fertile valleys, and in no place in the world 
have I seen such a profusion of wild flowers; 
while the cloud-flecked sky which is characteristic 
of Serbia, the fleeting shadows over the glowing 
meadows, the broad plains with their golden crops 



A GLANCE AT THE COUNTRY 2» 

and the myriads of bending fruit trees, make up 
a picture that can never be forgotten. 

The climate resembles that of New England^ 
even to the "Indian Summer," with its bright 
warm days and keen nipping nights. There are 
frequent heavy rains and thunder-storms during 
the summer months. The rough Serbian roads 
are full of deep holes into which, as almost the 
only attempt at repair, large boulders are thrown 
with touching confidence that the next storm will 
settle them into place. 

All the hauling is done by big oxen, or by 
uncouth-looking water buffalo, who draw the 
crude carts at the rate of about a mile an hour. 
While it is a pretty sight to see these oxen decked 
with wild flowers by their peasant owners, yet it 
isn't so pleasant to find them Ij'ing by the road- 
side suffering from sunstroke, to which they are 
curiously liable. 

Of late years the principal industries have been 
the canning of '^egetables, the raising of pork, and 
the drying of prunes, of which Serbia has put 
forth a great proportion of the world's supply. 



30 A NATION AT BAY 

Austria, desiring to swell her own commerce by 
the control of the Serbian market, has been able 
to deny this country an outlet to the sea. This 
has naturally hampered the progress of industries 
and Serbia has, therefore, remained poor — but 
not humble. 

I have seen much of misery and want in that 
sad country during these last two years, but never 
have I heard a Serb, man, woman or child, beg, 

I They have always worked hard and lived poorly, 
but they were utterly content, since what they had 
was their own and their feeling of proud inde- 
pendence outweighed hunger and cold and even 

i death itself. The peasant will bow before you 
and perhaps even kiss your hand, but then he will 
stand upright and talk as easily and freely as if 
to his own brother. 

The hills of Serbia are full of iron, silver, gold 
and copper. In fact, in old Roman times the 
world's greatest supply of silver came from Ser- 
bia, and her copper mines are perhaps the richest 
in the world. But jealous neighbors and lack of 



A GLANCE AT THE COUNTRY 31 

seaports have kept her from developing these rich 
resources. 

Today Serbia is absolutely devastated, as the 
Germans and Austrians cut down every fruit tree 
when they entered the country. It will take years 
and years of unremitting toil to give back to the 
world the supply of those delicious fruits and 
vegetables which the Serbian people formerly 
raised. This war will not be over when peace is 
declared. Years of reconstruction, of planting 
and patient upbuilding of ruined farms must in- 
tervene before Serbia is restored. 

The Serb prides himself on his simple origin. 
King Peter says he is "of the people," and by his 
nobility during these years of woe and suffering 
he has proved himself a brother indeed. 

The people were once light-hearted and merry, 
loving to sing and dance after the day's work was 
done, and, though for five hundred years the coun- 
try lay under the heel of the Turk and the people 
were denied education, the splendid spirit of 
patriotism has been kept alive by song and story. 
Dearer than wife or mother is Serbia to the Serb, 



S2 A NATION AT BAY 

though he is a good husband and a tender son. 
To him his beloved country comes first. 

The religion of Serbia is that form known as 
Greek Orthodox, but the peasant is naive in liis 
belief that "God helps those who help themselves." 
He is fond of telling the story of the man who fell 
into the river and called upon God to save him. 
So the Creator looked from Heaven and said, 
"Yes, of course, I will save you, but do move your 
arms and legs a little and try to swim out." 

The men are splendid, handsome fellows, and 
even among the old men of eight}'^ and ninety are 
some of the finest specimens I ever have seen. 
The women, owing no doubt to the lack of light 
and ventilation in their houses, are rather saUow. 
I The typical Serbian has dark hair and gray 
eyes, rather high cheekbones and strongly marked 
features ; he has a tall and wiry body and is capa- 
ble of withstanding extraordinary hardships. Al- 
v/ays the battlefield of Europe, always holding 
the gate between East and West, and always loyal 
to her ideals, not even the Turk in his five hundred 



A GLANCE AT THE COUNTRY 33 

years of oppression could crush the religion or 
taint the blood of Serbia. 

Serbia, like Switzerland, is entirely cut off from 
the sea, bounded as it is on the north by Austria, 
on the east by Bulgaria, on the south by Greece, 
and on the west by Albania. It was settled in the 
seventh century by wandering shepherd tribes of 
Serbs and Croats, who entered the western half 
of the Balkan Peninsula and there made their 
home. At the end of the eleventh century they 
had already formed a powerful State and were 
engaged in acquiring the culture of Byzantium 
and Rome. 

Their greatest king, Stephen Dushan, was 
soldier, law-giver, builder of churches and 
patron of art and literature. In 1354<, Dushan 
gave to the people the Zakonik, or Code of Law, 
which ranks high among medieval codes. Jugo- 
slav literature, rich and glowing with tales of 
heroism, was born toward the end of the ninth 
century, and the earliest fragments preserved date 
from the tenth century. 

The first Serbian novel, "Vladimir and Kos- 



S4 A NATION AT BAY 

sara," was published in the thirteenth century. 
Among the first poetic writers were Marko, 
Maroulitch and Hannibal Luchitch (fourteenth 
and fifteenth centuries). 

Serbia has always had the gift of song and 
sometimes her ballads are sung to the accompani- 
ment of the gusle, an instrument shaped some- 
what like a guitar but having only one string. It 
is rested on the knee and played with a high 
arched bow, and it is surprising what wailing, 
minor melodies can be drawn from it. 

The Serbian language is verj^ beautiful and 
lends itself admirabl}' to splendid songs of valor, 
glory and hope. There is no part-singing, but all 
sing in unison. Sometimes two will start a song 
story in duet and when they cease two more will 
take up the theme and go on from that point, and 
so on until the story is done. 

Owing to the depression caused by the con- 
tinual wars for several years I had not heard 
the Serbians sing until in the autumn of 1916 be- 
fore the recapture of Monastir by Allied armies — 
I found myself in a camp just behind the Serbian 



A GLANCE AT THE COUNTRY 35 

lines. It was a glorious moonlight night and the 
soldiers were filled with joy that they were again 
in their beloved land, so, after the frugal supper, 
a group of young men began to sing the songs of 
their country. The guns were booming near at 
hand and we could hear the rattling crackle of 
the machine guns, but through it all came thp 
triumphant refrain of "Givela Serbia." 

In earlier days, when, for Serbians, education 
was difficult and culture rare, we find the burning 
names of Czar Lazar and his Empress, Militza, 
educators and protectors of their people; 
Stephen Dushan, patriot and law-giver; Marko 
Kralyvitch, soldier and champion of the weak and 
lowly. Then after a long, dark time, during 
which the people were so oppressed that few 
names emerge from the murk, we see the Serbian 
brilHancy still undimmed, shining forth in tJie 
name of Vuk Stephanovitch Karagich. 

Still nearer our time the names best known to 
us here in America are those of Father Nicholas 
Velimirovitch, the monk; the great portrait 
painter, Paul Yovanovitch; sculptor of historic 



36 A NATION AT BAY 

figures, George Yovanovitch, and most marvelous 
sculptor, second to none in his genius, Mestro- 
vitch. Also there are Rista Voucanovitch, native 
of Hertzegovina, and Murat from Dalmatia, but 
both Serbs and, before the present war, exhibitors 
in Belgrade. 

We must not forget Stoyan Novacovitch, who 
was leader of the Conservative party. Prime Min- 
ister and Diplomat, nor Dr. Voya Velikovitch, 
prominent in the Liberal party and a Avell-known 
member of Parliament. In medicine there are 
Subotich, Wutschetitch, Roman Sondermaj'^er, 
Among the later poets tlie names of Rakitch, the 
writer of epic verse, and Jean Douchitch, called 
the "Byron of Serbia," stand forth conspicuously. 

America owes a debt to Serbia for the genius 
of that famous scientist, Michael Idvorski Pupin, 
American citizen but of Serbian blood and devoted 
Serbophil, who holds a chair in Columbia Uni- 
versity and through whose efforts many influential 
Americans have been aroused to a warm interest 
in Serbia. 

Less well-known in this country, perhaps, 



A GLANCE AT THE COUNTRY 37 

are the names of Prime Minister Pashitch, 
the splendid statesman ; George Simitch, for many 
years a leading diplomat ; Chedomille Myatovitch 
and Dr. Vladan Georgevitch, statesmen and 
writers ; as well as Milenko Vesnitch, who was the 
head of the Serbian War Mission that visited this 
country a short time ago, and Professor Sima 
Losanitch, who accompanied him, together with 
General Rashitch, all men who shed honor on the 
name of their country. Kornel Stankovitch, 
musician, and Marianovitch an author, famous at 
least in his native land, and Illarion Ruvarats, the 
historian. All of these later men of genius look 
back to their forerunner, St. Sava, who in the 
fourteenth century devoted his life to spreading 
education and a love of art among his countrymen. 
The greatest hero in Serbian history, Marko 
Kralyvitch, called "Marko, the King's Son," was 
said to be the offspring of a "Dragon" and a 
Vila, or mountain fairy. "Dragon" in Serbian 
poetry is used to designate a fearless soldier and 
constantly recurs in tales of warriors and great 
men. 



38 A NATION AT BAY 

There have been many legends written of 
Marko, who is popularly supposed never to have 
died but to sleep in a cave near the Castle of 
Prilip. He is said to awaken at intervals and 
come forth to see if his sword, which he had thrust 
to its hilt in the rock, has fallen out. When this 
shall occur he will return to restore the empire 
which was destroj^ed at Kossovo in 1389. 

The Serbian ideals are high and spiritual. For 
example, when there was a dispute between Marko's 
father and his uncle and "Probatim," (adopted 
brother) as to which should inherit the throne and 
Marko was called upon to decide the question, 
Jevrossima, his mother, counseled him. The 
mother's wisdom has been preserved in a national 
folk poem: 

"Greatly as Marko himself loved justice 

Greatly his mother thereto advise him; 
'Marko, thou only son of thy mother 

Let not my milk in thee be accursed, 
Do not utter an unjust judgment. 

Speak not in favor of father of kinsman 
But speak for the justice of the God of Truth, 

It were better to lose thy life 
Than to lose thy soul by sinning.' " 



A GLANCE AT THE COUNTRY 39 

The world heard an echo of these words three 
years ago when, in reply to the proposals of 
Austria that Serbia should make a separate peace, 
deserting her aUies, and so to save her population 
from terrible suffering, Mr. Pashitch, the great 
Serbian Prime Minister, said: "It is better to die 
in beauty than to live in shame." 

Many of the Serbian proverbs are closely akin 
to our o\ra and all show a deep appreciation of 
honesty and often a keen sense of humor. A few 
of the best known are as follows : 

It is better to know how to behave than to hav© 
gold. 

Woe to the legs under a foolish head. 

Keep white money for black days. 

It is easier to earn than to keep. 

Without health is no wealth. 

A cheerful heart spins the flax. 

A kind word opens the iron door. 

An earnest work is never lost. 

Who does good will receive better. 

Debt is a bad companion. 

What is taken unjustly or by force is accursed. 

As the master is so are the servants. 

Mend the hole while it is small. 

Who judges hastily will repent quickly. 



40 A NATION AT BAY 

He who works has much; he who saves has more. 

If you would know a man place him in authority. 

It is better to suffer injustice than to commit it. 

Boast to a stranger; complain only to a friend. 

The lie has short legs. 

Pe who mixes with refuse will be devoured by 
swine. 

God sometimes shuts one door to open a hundred 
otl ers. 

God does not settle his accounts with men every 
Saturday but in his own good time. 

The devil never sleeps. 

More men die of eating and drinking than of hunger 
and thirst. 

The Home does not stand upon the soil but on the 
wife. 

Beiter a body in rags and a soul in silk than a soul 
in rags and a body in silk. 

Do not ask how a man crosses himself but whose 
the blood that warms his heart and whose the milk 
that nourished him. 

Victory is not won by shining arms but by brave 
hearts. 

The heroic sentiments of men and women alike 
inflame the imagination and give an insight into 
the character of the people as nothing else can 
do. General Stephanovitch said to his soldiers 
when, on an occasion, they were depressed and 



A GLANCE AT THE COUNTRY 41 

seemed spiritless, "Brothers, it is to your valor 
and achievements that I owe my honors. Unless 
you are again worthy of your past, I will tear 
these epaulettes from my shoulders and fling them 
at your feet." 

A Dalmatian Slav said to R. W. Seton Watson, 
"We have regained our belief in the future of our 
race." 

A foreign doctor told him, in one of the hos- 
pitals, "If you hear a man complaining be cer- 
tain that man is not a Serb." 

A Serbian lady said to one who would condole 
with her, "I gave my son to Serbia and now my 
prayers dwell with me in his stead." 

When Serbian soldiers were commended on some 
splendid feat in this war, they remarked simply, 
"With Marko Kralyvitch to help us it was easy 
enough." They believed that they had seen that 
hero of old days riding on his gray charger before 
them. 

The Maiden of Kossovo weeping over her dead 
on the fatal Field of Blackbirds cried, "Ah me ! I 
that am so wretched that were I to touch the 



42 A NATION AT BAY 

green oak tree mj grief would straightway wither 
all its freshness." 

Said the victims of a former invasion, "Grass 
never grows where the hoofs of Turkish horses 
pass." 

Volko the Outlaw was a true Socialist when he 
declared, "If I possess anything any man may 
share it ^ith me ; but if I have nothing then woe 
to the man who will not share with me what he 
has." 

When the Austrian Landsturm, elderly men, 
were called to the colors, some waggish Slav hung 
this notice on a tomb in the cemetery at Spalato. 
"Arise ye dead, ye, too, must fight for Francis 
Joseph." 

A Serbian divine, preaching in Serbia's darkest 
hour, uttered these solemn words, "The land of 
Serbia is an altar and your brother's blood is the 
sacrifice." And of the Serbs who had fallen in 
the defense of their country a native poet wrote: 
"From their blood shall flowers spring 
For some far off generation." 

The spirit of the people is shown by the stories 




General Michael Rashitch, Leader of Serbian Army in 
Retreat over Albanian Mountains 



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■ ^t-x.,.- 'Ax.^^-v-/^ v'Z«.-»-c<,2^ y <ii--t-a.-t-<-^.-<.;,r-e. 













^-^- 



A GLANCE AT THE COUNTRY 43 

of how the old parents advised their children. A 
mother to whom an only son had returned asked 
him why he was there. "Why, I am on leave," 
replied the young man. 

"But suppose there should be fighting while 
you are away," said the mother. "You must go 
back at once to your regiment where your duty 
lies." 

A Serbian regiment holding a position sent 
several times to ask for reinforcements but none 
came and the regiment lost heavily. Finally a 
corporal was sent back to headquarters and his 
message ran, "There are seven of us left, sir. Shall 
we go on holding the position?" 

An old man found in an attitude of utter 
despair was asked his trouble. "You would not 
understand," he said. "But I had three sons. One 
was killed in the Turkish war; one I lost in the 
Balkan war and my last son I buried today." 

*'But they fell upon the field of honor which 
should be a consolation to you," was the answer, 

"I knew you would not understand," growled 
the old man. "That is not what troubles me: but 



44 A NATION AT BAY 

they have left five little boys behind and it will 
be so long before they are old enough to fight for 
Serbia!" 

There arc endless stories showing the devotion 
of the people and many pathetic ones showing how 
even the women resign themselves to all loss if it 
is for their country's sake. In Macedonia I saw 
a woman, accompanied by two little children, who 
I had seen, surrounded by her large family, gath- 
ering the crops in the fields near Vrgntzc. In a 
moment of forgetfulness, I asked, "Where arc the 
others?" Inclining her head toward the Albanian 
mountains, she said: 

"They are oA'cr there — with God." 

"Serbia still lives in tJw hearts of her people" 



CHAPTER IV 

The Plot 

Austria's attack upon Serbia in 1914 was most 
cleverly engineered, since the excuse was the mur- 
der of the Austrian Crown Prince Ferdinand by 
a Serb. But behind this we see the hand of Ger- 
many, who was plotting to gain control of the 
route to Egypt and India. Her idea of 
world domination began witli tlie hoped-for 
Berlin-to-Bagdad Railway, and she went about 
entangling the other Central European Powers 
that they might work for her ends and pull her 
chestnuts out of the fire. 

Austria wished only to bully little Serbia and 
did not desire to enter upon a World War, iv 
which she might have clearly seen that Germany 
would take everything worth having. She wanted 
to continue her policy of repression and extortion 
against the Slavs and to succeed perhaps in annex- 

45 



46 A NATION AT BAY 

ing more Serbian provinces, as during the years 
since Serbia had thrown off the Turkish yoke, she 
had already taken the richest of Serbia's northern 
territory by force and by crafty statesmanship. 
Her bitterness against Serbia perhaps was aug- 
mented by a realization of her own injustice and 
by the proud courage and resistance of the Serbian 
people. 

Austria knew that Serbia would never yield 
to her dominance, so she plotted even in the blood 
of her own Royal House. The youth who mur- 
dered the Archduke Ferdinand was a Serb, but he 
was a Serb of Austria — one of those unhappy 
expatriates who had been brought up to hold 
allegiance to the enemy of his own country and in 
whose brain whirled confused and perverted ideals 
of loyalty and honor. 

So by way of making all the world see that she 
was not to be trifled with and hoping that the 
world would believe that she was injured and justi- 
fied, Austria prepared to invade Serbia. When she 
was thrown out of the country the first time her 
surprise was great. When a second time she 



THE PLOT 47 

found that the small but gallant nation, which 
she had expected to find an easy victim, was again 
too much for her, her fury knew no bounds. The 
spectacle of her army fleeing before a foe much 
less than half its size — fleeing in panic, throwing 
its equipment away and screaming for mercy when 
overtaken, was not an edifying sight. 

But Austria tried hard to "save her face" and 
again deceive a world which was now beginning to 
understand her game. Drawing her mantle of 
dignity about her as best she might, she announced 
that "our punitive expedition against Serbia is 
now concluded," and a derisive world rocked with 
laughter. 

It was Germany who, acting behind the scenes 
in 1914, pushed Austria again and again into the 
fray, and who, in 1915, when Serbia was nearly 
exhausted, egged on treacherous Bulgaria to 
strike for revenge against Serbia and to defy her 
parent Russia. It was Germany who bribed and 
coerced Turkey into joining the attack and it is 
German guile that has Austria, Bulgaria and 
Turkey fighting for their very lives today. 



48 A NATION AT BAY 

Germany's dream is to rule the world, and these 
dishonored accomplices may be very sure she 
does not intend that they should share her throne. 
They are to fight for her, smooth her way and be 
her humble vassals; — her slave-drivers, but not 
the Princes of her House. A poor reward for 
treachery, outrage, child-murder, and all the hor- 
rors of blood and infamy in which these deluded 
countries have sunk themselves! A mean wage 
this, for which they have bartered their national 
souls ! 

What Germany has done on the west to Belgium 
— the infamy of her invasion, the stealing of 
maidenhood for shameful purposes of alien mater- 
nity, the looting, burning and enslaving — her 
partners have done in little Serbia on the East. 
And even more, for Germany has committed her 
crimes coldly and under the cloak of "military 
necessity," while Austria and Bulgaria, filled with 
hatred of the people whom the one had robbed 
and the other betrayed, — these two, I say, have 
run like ravening wolves through the fertile valleys 



THE PLOT 49 

and over the blue hills of heroic Serbia, and in 
their wake lies utter desolation. 

When the accounting comes of murdered babes, 
outraged and mutilated women, young girls sold 
into shame in Turkish cities, massacred old men 
and crucified children, cities razed and riches 
stolen, orchards destroyed and fair lands devas- 
tated — when this accounting comes, God in His 
Heaven shall judge these criminals and His thun- 
der-tones shall pronounce their doom. 



CHAPTER V 

The Debacle 

When Austria decided, late in 1915, that the 
time was ripe for her final attempt to crush Ser- 
bia, she massed her troops along the Danube and 
the Save Rivers, bringing up her heavy artillery 
and providing for the attack enormous stores of 
shells and munitions. Knowing how gallant and 
determined was their opponent, they made sure 
of having sufficient force with which finally to 
overwhelm her. 

But they had no easy task. All the 
world now knows how Serbia met this attack, 
how bitterly she contested every rod of ground 
and how only by the terrific out-numbering of her 
devoted men and the immensely superior strength 
of her enemy's ordnance was she at last subdued — 
not conquered, for Serbia's Army still is fighting. 

50 



THE DEBACLE 51 

In October, Austria had prepared to cross the 
river at Belgrade by an irresistibly heavy bom- 
bardment, during which they fired fifty thousand 
shells into the town, their avowed object being 
to kill as many people as possible and thus create 
a reign of terror. 

They also had laid a curtain of shell-fire on 
the roads leading from the town, and hundreds of 
poor fugitives were killed. Men and women, little 
children, wounded soldiers who were taken from 
hospital beds ; the gently-nurtured wives and 
daughters of diplomats, bankers and college pro- 
fessors ; shopkeepers, Austrian prisoners, servants 
and all the varied population of a great city fell 
victims to this merciless fire and lay in heaps upon 
that Road of Death. 

The Serbian troops had not replied to this fire, 
hoping that by refraining the civil population 
might be spared, and later on, after most strenu- 
ously resisting the enemy's advance, had with- 
drawn from the town. But nothing availed to 
restrain the implacable enemy, and so he looted, 
burned and killed as his nature prompted him. 



52 A NATION AT BAY 

Gallows were s^t up in the public places upon his 
entrance into the town and wholesale executions 
followed. 

By the intervention of Americans, who had 
been doing hospital work in the city, these 
gallows were later removed to less conspicuous 
spots. The Americans protested to the Austrian 
military authorities and were able for a time to 
relieve the appalled and suffering people from the 
awful sight of their nearest and dearest hanging 
shamefully before their very windows. 

In the attack at the frontier and on the town 
poison gas was used. And this new and diabolical 
weapon — new at least to the Serbians — was more 
fatal than all the other methods of warfare com- 
bined. 

The open avowals of Austria, Germany and 
Bulgaria that they intend to exterminate the 
natives is one of the tragic phases of the situation 
in the Balkans. The wholesale hanging of prom- 
inent citizens, the turning of machine guns on 
innocent inhabitants, the exportation of thous- 
ands of young girls to Turke}'^, where they are 



THE DEBACLE 53 

ssold into the harems, the young boys taken into 
enemy countries to be brought up in military 
schools, the removal of the scanty crops and the 
awful treatment of Serbian prisoners, are some of 
the terrible methods by which this extermination 
is being accomplished. 

Yet a great shriek had gone up in Austria 
during the previous evacuation of Serbia by the 
Serbian army over the rumor that the Austrian 
prisoners were dying in thousands as they were 
driven through the mountains by the Serbian 
troops. Undoubtedly many did die, as did also 
thousands of Serbian soldiers ; but so many, many 
thousands were freed afterwards, or interned in 
Italy, that it is probable the mortality was far 
less than might seem likely in the circumstances. 

Also, and this is admitted by both Berlin and 
Vienna, after the typhus epidemic the Serbs of- 
fered to exchange all their prisoners but received 
no reply to their message. Therefore, the Aus- 
trians have no cause for complaint, nor can we 
believe that their protests were seriously made, as 
a very large proportion of these men were their 



54 A NATIOIS AT BAY 

own Slav subjects whom tliey themselves sacri- 
ficed, on occasion, lightly and remorselessly. 

In the final successful invasion the Austrian 
troops were in every way inferior to the Germans 
who stiffened Austrian ranks, but the Serbs were 
outnumbered at least four to one, while each 
enemy division had double the number of guns 
that the Serbs possessed. The asphyxiating gases 
used by the enemy were of great advantage, but 
in spite of all this he had to fight for every foot 
of ground. 

Even the Austrian and German newspapers paid 
tribute to the desperate courage of the Serbian 
troops. The loss of Serbian officers alone — great 
numbers of whom were killed in holding positions 
which while hopeless yet would give the Serbian 
Army time to get further away and perhaps to 
consolidate some more valuable strategic points — 
and the heroism of the Serbians, men and officers 
alike, form an example for the world to wonder 
at and to follow if they can. During this terrible 
fighting the Serbs actually took over a thousand 



THE DEBACLE 55 

prisoners including many officers. Then the Bul- 
garians came in. 

They attacked Serbia on October 11th, 1915, 
though their declaration of war was not handed 
to the Serbian Government until late in the day 
on October 12th. 

Germany had gained a worthy ally ! 

This new blow meant that Serbia now had to 
defend about one hundred and sixty miles on the 
Save and Danube, one hundred miles on the Bos- 
nian front and two hundred and eighty miles on 
the Bulgarian frontier. The enormous task did 
not dismay the Serbians, however, for they con- 
tinued to fight heroically though they well knew 
that this time their enemies meant to finish the 
job of annihilation. Here indeed was a gallant 
Nation at Bay. 

Serbia's only hope lay in the prompt arrival of 
Entente aid, which had been promised and was 
daily expected but which did not come. So at 
last, when nearly surrounded and threatened with 
total extinction at the hands of its merciless ene- 



56 A NATION AT BAY 

mies, the gallant array withdrew to the trackless 
wilds of the Albanian mountains. 

All the stores and munitions, the guns and 
motors, in fact everything that could not be car- 
ried on pack animals, had to be destroyed, while 
the remnants of that gallant army stood by filled 
with bitter grief and despair. DesDairing they 
vanished from their beloved land, only love for 
which kept them from self-destruction They 
had too little hope in those black days, but it was 
their duty to Serbia to do what they could to 
survive so that, perchance, if the Entente did not 
again fail them they might by some miracle return 
to fight once more to restore to freedom the Serbia 
who must now lie for a time groaning under the 
cruel yoke of a ruthless oppressor. 



CHAPTER VI 

Hells on Earth 

When the French and English retreated to the 
Marne, the resistless waves of German troops 
rolled after them and engulfed thousands of gal- 
lant hearts in their overwhelming flood. Mars 
rode upon the storm of horror and drank his fill 
of pain and blood. 

When the Serbian Army retreated before the 
foe, four times its own strength, it went backzvard 
facing the enemy and fighting every step of the 
way. When the great arsenal of Kraguevatz fell, 
in November, 1915, the friends of Serbia wrung 
their hands and praj'^ed that aid might reach her 
before it was too late. 

The King, in the midst of his soldiers, said to 
them : "My children, you have taken an oath to 
me your King. From this I release you. From 
your oath to your country, I cannot release you, 

57 



58 A NATION AT BAY 

but If you win, or if you lose, I and my sons stay 
with you here." 

Old and feeble, suffering with neuritis and 
other infirmities, riding on a jolting ox-cart 
over the atrocious roads and with despair 
in his heart but still true to his ideals and the 
high courage of his race, his was a fitting spirit 
to guide such an army as the Serbians had proved 
theirs to be. And the soldiers, tired, hungry, 
worn and yet not overcome answered him with a 
shout of "Givela, Serbia." No shirking here. 
These were men who would be faithful unto death. 

The Crown Prince Alexander, stricken and 
forced to undergo an operation at Skutari, would 
not seek safety until all arrangements had been 
made to carr}^ the last poor refugee away to 
strange islands and foreign lands where he might 
await in safety the coming of a brighter day. 

When the civil population of Serbia went forth 
from their homes, fleeing from those remembered 
horrors of invasion, they took with them only 
what they could carry on their backs, the clothing 
they wore and the bread which was to sustain 



HELLS ON EARTH 59 

them for a little — such a little time. Some ox- 
carts there were, to be sure, but these moved 
slowly and had to be abandoned for lack of roads 
when the mountains were reached. Here there 
were only rough tracks made by goats or mules 
and even these were soon lost under the pitiless 
snow. The animals were first turned loose and 
later, as the distress and hunger of the people 
grew more acute, they were struck down and their 
flesh eaten by the starving wanderers. Famished 
dogs went wild and made common cause with the 
wolves and bears which roamed the mountain 
slopes. Then woe to any poor soul who might 
become separated from his group. 

The Government formed all boys between the 
ages of seven and seventeen into companies so 
that youth might not be hampered by age in the 
flight. Over thirty thousand of these lads entered 
the snowy passes and what they braved, suffered 
and endured beggars imagination. Only six 
thousand survive today. 

Had they fallen into the hands of the enemy 
various fates might have overtaken them. Any boy 



60 A NATION AT BAY 

over twelve years of age was liable to be called 
a "soldier" and interned, then starved as all Ser- 
bian prisoners are starving today. Or he might 
be termed a spy and shot or infamously hanged 
as so many thousand Serbians have been within 
these past two years. Or, if still young enough 
to forget, he might be taken into strange lands 
and there trained in arms, eventually to fight 
against his own country. 

So they went forth on their pilgrimage of mar- 
tyrdom. Their doom has moved a warring world 
to futile tears. 

Those awful roads in November were filled with 
a procession of women, children, old men and 
maimed soldiers striving to get away from the 
sound of guns — while behind them fought the 
little groups of devoted men, fought till their 
weapons fell from their hands, fought still when, 
wounded, they sank upon the blood-soaked soil of 
Beloved Serbia, fought to give time for those poor 
refugees to get a little farther away that per- 
chance they might somewhere find safety. 

Away in the icy roads leading to Albania, 




C 



HELLS ON EARTH 61 

the poor ones struggled on. Mothers with their 
little ones around them; blinded soldiers led by 
the gentle hands of young girls, and carrying in 
their arms sick or half-frozen children; old men, 
tottering, stumbling, falling at last to rise no 
more; strong and handsome women, haggard 
now with bitter fear, their danger greater than 
any other. 

A child would moan in its mother's arras, and 
its little life would flicker out. The mother, 
kneeling beside the tiny form, would take off her 
great homespun apron that she might leave the 
loved body decently covered. But the other suf- 
fering children, crying at her side, needed the 
meagre warmth of the ragged garment, so the 
heartbroken mother with a piteous prayer must 
gather her little brood about her and, leaving her 
baby uncovered, go on again. 

One by one the children would fall by the road- 
side, prey to every cruel chance of misery, until 
at last the poor mother, more able to stand hard- 
ship than the little ones, would be left alone. 
Death would have been very sweet to her — to the 



62 A NATION AT BAY 

thousands like her who made that awful journey, 
— but she was of mettle too stern to accept this 
compromise with Fate. She knew just three shin- 
ing words, Love, Home, Duty. It was her duty to 
go on and keep life in her starved and freezing 
body as long as she could so that if, by some 
unimagined chance she might come back again; 
come Home and raise up other children to live in 
the Beautiful Serbia of her love. 

Oh, these were soldiers too. Not theirs the reek 
and riot, the heat and j oy of battle. They fought 
the bitter fight with cold and hunger. Their tired 
and bleeding feet trod the ways of Gethsemane; 
the rich and tenderly nurtured side by side with 
the poor and lowly. 

Sometimes a terrible blizzard would sweep 
down upon them and they could not crouch 
down seeking shelter under the rocks by the rough 
trail but must needs struggle on since to falter 
then meant death by freezing. 

Alas ! for the many tiny hands and little feet 
which today bear terrible proof of the power of 
those icy blasts, and alas for the desolate mothers 



HELLS ON EARTH 63 

whose babes knew no other winding-sheet than the 
spotless snow and whose little bodies lie thickly 
on the road to a nation's Calvary. 

On Corfu and Corsica, whither the Allies trans- 
ferred the refugees when at last they arrived at 
the coast of Albania, so many died from the effects 
of that piteous evacuation that the islands; could 
not accommodate all the wasted bodies within 
their soil, and they had to be loaded on barges by 
hundreds, taken away from the shore and com- 
mitted to the keeping of the sea ; — that sea which 
in life had been denied them but which must now 
forever be hallowed to Serbia by the devoted 
hearts that have found rest beneath its waves. 

Thousands of Serbian soldiers were taken 
prisoners in those terrible days of fighting. And 
what was their lot? 

The treatment of prisoners in Austria — proud, 
aristocratic Austria! — is awful beyond words. 
Forced to work at the hardest and vilest tasks, fed 
upon so-called "turnip soup," which is little more 
than unclean water, and foul scraps of unspeak- 
able black bread — too little of cither even to dull 



64 A NATION AT BAY 

the edge of appetite, they are herded in draughty 
sheds without blankets and with only an occa- 
sional ragged sack to cover their wasted bodies. 
Sick and well are crowded together, without medi- 
cal attention, and when a man grows too weak to 
work he is thrust into a wooden cage and there 
kept until merciful death lays its hand on him, and 
he can carry his sorrows into an unmarked grave. 
Beaten with the butts of rifles, savagely smashed 
into their faces, kicked, spat upon and cursed, 
these men still cling to life hoping they may yet, 
by some miracle, be freed to strike again for the 
Serbia of their dreams. 

Looking backward and comparing the de- 
meanor of the prisoners of different nationalities, 
the thing that impressed me most when I was in 
Serbia in 1915 was the air of utter and serene con- 
tentment on the faces of the Austrian prisoners; 
and in 1916, the suspicious, but relieved, air of 
the Bulgarians, when they found that they were 
still alive and unharmed after being taken by the 
Serbians. 

The Austrians sang and joked at their 



HELLS ON EARTH 65 

work and, except for an occasional home- 
sick boy, seemed to be thoroughly enjoying them- 
selves. But the Bulgarians could not believe that 
their captors — *who had seen the mutilated bodies 
of their brothers rescued from the enemies' bloody 
hands — would not take revenge upon them in kind. 
Serbian soldiers know only too well what it 
means to fall alive into the hands of the Bulga- 
rians, for the Bulgarian is a Tartar with all the 
cruel instincts of the race. He kills his enemy as 
he lies wounded or shoots his prisoners in batches. 
Happy are these if death alone awaits them after 
capture. 

In Belgrade I have seen pitiful remnants 
of men who have been rescued from the hands 
of the foe, whose favorite trick is to mutilate 
in some horrible manner that will either make 
those who look upon his victim shudder with hor- 
ror, or rouse one to sorry laughter, as in the case 
of the wretched man of whom I spoke in a previous 
chapter. In either case the man is barbarously 
marked for life. 



CHAPTER VII 

The Call 

Feom the time that I returned to England, 
where I was then living for a while, after 
the close of my hospital work in Belgrade, life 
had been smooth and pleasant. My home in 
lovely Hampshire seemed dearer than ever, with 
its great trees and its green lawns. The days 
slipped by so peacefully that the suffering 
I had seen seemed almost like a dream — 
yet not quite a dream, for always there 
was work to do, money to be raised, clothing to 
be collected and sent oif to Serbia, letters from 
the friends I had made in Belgrade and replies to 
be sent. And always in my heart grew and 
flourished the love and admiration which had been 
implanted there by the courage of those splendid 
soldiers and by the patience and suffering of those 
brave and gentle women. 

66 



THE CALL 67 

Early in 1915, a meeting was held in the Man- 
sion House in London, by the Serbian Relief Fund, 
at which Herbert Samuel, T, P. O'Connor and 
other prominent speakers told of the terrible con- 
ditions in Serbia. The horrors of the typhus 
epidemic were so vividly presented that more than 
one person in the audience was moved to volunteer 
to go out and minister unto agonized Serbia. 

I was one of those to offer my services. My for- 
mer experience among the soldiers in the hospitals 
gave me reason to believe that I could again be 
of help, but on application to the Serbian Relief 
Fund I discovered that the fact that I was not 
"trained" and had no certificates rendered me un- 
acceptable ; my knowledge of the people, their cus- 
toms and the practical experience I had gained 
among them, being apparently of littlo value. 
However, a week later. Princess Alexis Kara- 
goorgevitch, the American wife of Prince Alexis 
of Serbia, cousin of King Peter, wrote to me, say- 
ing, «I hear the Serbian Relief Fund would not 
take you, but if you will go out with us, Alexis 
and I will be only too glad to have you. We 



68 A NATION AT BAY 

know how much every pair of wilhng hands is 
needed." 

Then followed a hectic week of preparation. 
Vaccination, inoculation against typhoid, proper 
clothing in which to do any work that might be 
required of me, settling up all my affairs in case 
I did not return, and dozens of other things, in- 
cluding passports, all of which I had to attend to 
myself. 

Prince and Princess Alexis had been col- 
lecting medical supplies and money for the 
stricken people. Mrs. Leggett, an American liv- 
ing in London, had given a splendid ambulance, 
and many committees in England and America 
had collected clothing, dressings and drugs, all of 
which were sent direct from England to Salonika, 
there to await our arrival. 

Captain Nicholas Georgevitch was acting as 
Aide to the Prince, and it was splendid to see how 
he worked. He would trust no one to mark the 
many bales and cases containing the precious 
stores, and I was much impressed to find this 
immaculate 3'oung man kneeling on dust}' ware- 



THE CALL 69 

house floors with a stencil in one hand and a brush 
dripping with black paint in the other, solemnly 
putting on the addresses. I asked hira why he 
did not have it done by the packers. 

"If these things go astray, it is my fault!" was 
his answer. 

We crossed from Folkstone to Boulogne and 
went through endless examinations though, owing 
to the high rank of the Prince, I was told these 
formalities were less severe than ordinarily is the 
case. Prince Alexis having lived many years in 
Paris and being well known there, the authorities 
were very considerate on our arrival at the station, 
and we were able to set off with little delay for the 
hotel. The streets were filled with black-robed wo- 
men and children and with blue-gray clad soldiers. 
On every face was a look of grave determination. 
I seemed to see written there those heroic words 
of the French commander: "THEY SHALL NOT 

pass:* 

I was hurrying one day along the Champs 
Elysees when I saw a sad little group of soldiers, 
real "poilus," brown and bearded but with the 



70 A NATION AT BAY 

hospital pallor showing through the tan, wander- 
ing aimlessly under the trees. One was on crutches 
— his right leg missing ; another had only one arm, 
while the third, with a green shade over his eyes, 
had his head swathed in bandages. They were 
evidently strangers in Paris, perhaps from the 
Northern invaded provinces, and certainly home- 
sick and lonely. 

As I looked, suddenly a gorgeous, glittering 
automobile came purring smoothly down the 
road driven by an immaculately-groomed man 
of middle-age — and this was an unusual sight, 
for few private cars were in use in Paris. 
With a gentle swerve the beautiful car drew up 
at the curb and the owner leaned out and said 
something to the three soldiers of which I caught 
only the words "Mes freres — " (my brothers). 

The invalids stared in uncomprehending wonder, 
but the gentleman spoke again and waved his arm 
hospitably toward the tonneau. Slowly the 
soldiers smiled! Then they feebly lifted them- 
selves, their sticks and crutches into the lux- 
urious vehicle (with many injunctions to each 



THE CALL 71 

other to be careful), and the last I saw of the 
party they were whirling gayly away amid the 
blessings and cheers of a little crowd which, like 
myself, had watched the pretty episode. 

After dinner the first evening, Prince George 
of Serbia, eldest son of King Peter, came in and I 
was able to observe, without seeming to do so, this 
interesting personage. Very tall, almost gaunt, 
with broad shoulders held in a slightly stooping 
position and with hands always buried in his 
trouser pockets, he reminded me strongly of his 
father the King. Abrupt and restless, utterly 
careless of the conventions, said to be kind, but 
never tender, a passionate hater and an ardent 
patriot. Prince George has much of the charm of 
a high-spirited and undisciplined boy. 

Surprised to see him in Paris at this time, some 
one asked, "And were you in this campaign, your 
Highness ?" Instantly, his eyes blazing, he opened 
his tunic and shirt to expose his lean, brown body 
with a fresh and flaming scar. Then, turning, 
he showed a corresponding one at the back where 
the bullet has passed out. 



72 A NATION AT BAY 

"You think I do not love my country," he ex- 
claimed. "Well, there's my proof." 

Then I was told the story how, in the midst 
of a fierce battle, he had come upon a group of 
Serbian soldiers, dazed and idle. 

"What are you doing.?" he demanded. 

"Prince, our officers are all killed and we do 
not know what to do." 

"Follow me," roared George, and he dashed into 
the Austrians' front rank. The men did follow 
and when the enemy had been driven back they 
returned bringing the Prince helpless and bleed- 
ing profusely but still full of fight. 

After a few days in Paris, we started for Mar- 
seilles. Our party formed a fairly imposing 
spectacle. There were the Prince and Princess 
Alexis, Captain Georgevitch, myself, the Princess' 
English maid, her French chef, the French chauf- 
feur, (who was to keep the ambulance and the 
touring car in order, driving them whenever re- 
quired) the chauffeur's wife, who was to be cham- 
bermaid, a pair of bulldogs, an Italian dog, deli- 
cate and beautiful, called Roma, and a tiny Pekin- 



THE CALL. 73 

ese. There were thirty-eight trunks, some of them 
filled with household linens, curtains and silver; 
for the Prince and Princess intended taking up 
their permanent residence in Serbia. How little 
we then thought of the further terrible events so 
soon to overwhelm the country. 

Our first stop was at Malta, where we went 
ashore. The streets were hot and glaring with 
sunshine which was most cheering after the cold 
raw bleakness of London and even Paris. The 
Governor sent a launch to take us on a trip in the 
harbor and wc were much interested to see the 
battleships, destroyers and other vessels, and the 
enormous piles of shells and cases of various mu- 
nitions lying on the quaji^s ready for trans-ship- 
ping. 

England was preparing for war at last on 
a large scale. Hospital ships were arriving from 
Salonika and even farther East, filled with sick or 
wounded, large numbers of whom came from Gal- 
lipoli. The streets of Malta were full of troops 
and staff officers, while convalescents, and soldiers 



74 A NATION AT BAY 

returning from India on their way to the front, 
chatted at every corner. 

A few days later we arrived at Athens, where 
we were met by Count Mercati, Court Chamberlain 
to Queen Sophia of Greece, and son-in-law of 
Princess Alexis. We had a delightful day and 
were sorry to leave when our ship sailed. The 
three little grandchildren of Princess Alexis saw 
us off with assurances that they would soon come 
to see us in Serbia, — "As soon as you have got 
every one Avell," said eight-year-old Daria. 

We had on board several French ofScers who 
were going to join their forces at Lemnos, two 
infantry officers in the beautiful blue-gray cordu- 
ro3' field uniform, an aviation hero, handsome and 
bashful as a girl but the holder of two of the 
highest French decorations for valor, and a dozen 
other interesting personalities, including an Eng- 
lish officer on a mission for the Admiralty. 

We touched at Dedeagatch, the Bulgarian port 
(then neutral) where all stores and supplies for 
the allied troops at the Dardanelles were landed, 
and we could hpar the thunder of the big guns as 



) -#<■ 




THE CALL 75 

the warships waged their fruitless fight to pass 
the Narrows. 

We watched the supply ships lying at 
anchor, with the sailors' washing whipping in 
the wind. We saw the bare, gray warehouses on 
the shore and pyramids of cases with pigmy fig- 
ures of soldiers swarming over them, building them 
up or carrying them piecemeal away. Over all 
hung a heavy dim-colored haze brought by the 
wind from beyond the sheltering hills. This was 
the smoke of battle ! Over us the lowering clouds 
and below a sullen, choppy gray sea — fit setting 
for the tragedy that was soon to follow the Allies' 
expedition against Constantinople. 

From Dedeagatch to Salonika is but a short 
journey, and I am happy to say we arrived during 
a brief interval of fine weather, so that my first 
view of the ancient Macedonian city was a highly 
satisfactory one. My previous two trips to 
Serbia had been made overland. The beautiful 
curving harbor encircled us, its shores jeweled 
with blue and pink and milk-white villas in an 
emerald setting of trees ; before us the quays and 



76 A NATION AT BAY 

modern houses of the town with the famous White 
Tower at one end and the small dark Custom 
House at the other. Climbing up the hill was the 
Old Town, with its quaint tumble-down houses and 
mosques with their delicate minarets, all sur- 
rounded by the wall which has been its protection 
for many centuries. Across the harbor sat 
Mount Olympus crowned with snow. 

All the hotels are on the quay side, or near it. 
We went directly to the "Olympos Palace" and 
were so fortunate as to find excellent rooms. 
Our arrival caused some excitement. The Prince 
and Princess were overwhelmed by callers and 
deluged with invitations, most of which were 
evaded. 

We found that our mountain of stores had ar- 
rived but the boxes were scattered and buried in 
the dilapidated, untidy storehouses on the quay. 
It seemed an almost hopeless task to reclaim them, 
but the Prince and Captain Georgevitch, working 
day after day, with jheir ow njjands, dug through 
tons of freight and at last managed to get all 
our bales and cases together in one place. What 



THE CALL 77 

their opinion of Greek porters was I dare not 
state ! 

This took ten days, but finally we started on 
the last lap of our journey over the plains of 
northern Macedonia where symmetrical little hills 
rose suddenly from the flat earth; past miles of 
swamps filled with rank weeds ; sometimes, between 
clumps of tall marsh grass, catching a glimpse of 
lily-ponds where blue-gray herons dozed among the 
flowers, and occasionally meeting to our amaze- 
ment a shepherd so primitive in dress and appear- 
ance that he seemed as though translated directly 
from the days when the gods dwelt on Olympus. 
Then, in the distance, blue hills and our train 
puffed slowly around a long bend and into Serbia^ 



CHAPTER VIII 

Through Beautiful Serbia 

Ghevghelia is the frontier town of Serbia, and 
it was there we saw the first concrete signs of war. 
Just over the hills which here form the boundary 
between Serbia and Bulgaria a comitadji (brigand 
band) of two thousand Bulgarians was lying in 
wait to sweep down on the town — to loot and 
burn and destroy. 

But near the station Serbia's guns were trained 
on these same hills and her tall gaunt soldiers 
were alert and ready to repel the invaders. Up 
the hillsides clung the tents and grass huts of the 
troops, while along the railway line low gray 
wooden crosses marked the graves of those al- 
ready fallen in defense of their country. 

The old men and young boys who were strong 
enough to carry guns, but who could not stand 
the rigors of campaigning, were everywhere 
guarding the railway lines. It sometimes hap- 

78 



THROUGH BEAUTIFUL SERBIA 79 

pened that roving bands of Bulgarians would 
creep down the hillside and surprise them. Then 
fresh graves and new crosses would appear along 
the line. 

It was no uncommon sight to see boys of four- 
teen and men of eighty standing by the track, or 
sitting by their huts of cornstalks close by, and 
always with their guns held in their brown hands 
or coddled in the crook of their arms. Always 
ready, weak or old though they might be, j^et were 
they strong enough to give the signal when danger 
threatened and, if need be, to laj' do^vn their lives 
for the country which they loved. 

At this time Bulgaria was not officially at war 

'with Serbia, but tliere is no doubt whatever that 

these bands of brigands were employed by Austria 

to harass the Serbians in the south and east, so as 

to keep as many soldiers as possible engaged there. 

The last time that Austria's army was driven 
out the retreating forces left an enormous number 
of sick and wounded behind them and among the 
sufferers were man}' with typhus. The infection 
quickly spread and soon the deaths were so numer- 



80 A NATION AT BAY 

ous that in the smaller villages the dead could 
not be buried. The only way the bodies could 
be disposed of was by piling rubbish in the door- 
ways of the houses where such deaths had occurred 
and setting fire to it. In this way the contents 
were burned, and with them the various vermin, 
which were the chief factors in spreading the 
disease, were destroyed. 

From Ghevghelia, we traveled north, through 
Uskub where Claude and Alice Askew, English 
novehsts (who had been doing splendid work in 
Serbia and who have since lost their lives on a 
torpedoed vessel) came to the station to greet 
the Prince and Princess and to bring the latest 
news of how the work was progressing. We 
learned of the death of many of the doctors, 
nurses and other relief workers who had gone out 
from England, France and America as soon as 
the typhus epidemic made its appearance. But 
in no case was any worker willing to leave Serbia. 
From the time the great need of help was made 
known, volunteers came in large numbers, fearless 
and ready. 



THROUGH BEAUTIFUL SERBIA 81 

There are graves in Serbia today of foreign 
men and women whose names are imperishably en- 
graved on Serbian hearts. Among these martyrs 
to the cause of mercy were Madge Neil Fraser, 
Scotland's girl golf-champion, who died during 
the typhus epidemic, martyr to love and duty; 
Richard Chichester, heir to a great British 
ftitle, worker and philanthropist; Mrs. Hadley, 
sister of General French, who was killed by a 
(bursting shell a few months ago in the presence 
/of her daughter, while on duty at Monastir; the 
American Dr. Cooke, typhus victim, and Emily 
Louisa Simmonds, an American Red Cross nurse 
who offered her all and suffered much for Serbia. 
There wore many others also, heroes all, who gave 
their lives for a country not their own — who died 
nobly for the sake of a suffering people. 

When we arrived at Nish, we found that the 
train for Vrgntze, our destination, had gone. The 
station master made up a "special" for us and we 
started out in pursuit of the "local." On over- 
taking it, we found it crowded with sick and 
wounded, who were being sent to the hospitals at 



82 A NATION AT BAY 

Vrgntze, and with other workers like ourselves. 
Space was made for us however, and we went rat- 
tling away over the beautiful rolling valley of the 
Morava. 

The single track railway wound in and out 
among the hills and through little towns and vil- 
lages, whose white houses with glowing, red-tiled 
roofs were set in small gardens that later on would 
be gay with roses, lilies and pink oleanders. Some- 
times we could see the larger house of a Zadruga, 
surrounded by its cultivated fields and by the 
smaller cottages clustering like white chickens 
around a mother hen. The trees of the fruit or- 
chards sheltering the little homesteads would soon 
be bursting into leaf. In the muddy ditches 
ducks quacked and paddled, while long lines of 
solemn geese raised their heads inquiringly toward 
the passer-by. 

Often in the towns, we would see the domes and 
minaret of a Moslim Mosque (rising side by side 
with the tower and Cross of the Orthodox 
Church), reminding us of the long Turkish reign. 
We happened to pass along the route from Nish 



THROUGH BEAUTIFUL SERBIA 83 

to Vrgntze on a market day, so the roads were full 
of gajly clad peasants leading their small donkeys 
or driving the slow moving, dreamy oxen. 

Sometimes a detachment of cavalry would dash 
from a gap in the hills and for a time gallop be- 
sides our not-too-swiftly-moving train, or a col- 
umn of Austrian prisoners in their stained and 
ragged uniforms would pass, unarmed and almost 
unguarded, to their work of road-making or re- 
construction. They did not look sullen or un- 
happy. I was told that many were Austrian Slavs 
who were only too glad not to fight against those 
whom they look upon as their own countrymen. 

After some hours we saw through the pour- 
ing rain, which suddenly swept round the shoulder 
of a hill, the dense grove of trees that shelters 
beautiful Vrgntze, and in a few moments our loco- 
motive puffed wearily into the station^ which is 
two miles from the town. All the notables of the 
district were at the station to meet their High- 
nesses, and there was a long and rather damp re- 
ception. 

We found the Princess' automobile, which had 



84 A NATION AT BAY 

preceded us from Salonika, waiting, and were soon 
on our way to town. The road was so bad we had 
grave fears for the springs, but we arrived with- 
out accident and were soon eating a good hot 
lunch in the Villa Agnes, which was to be our home. 
This Villa was the only available house suitable 
for the ffood-sized establishment of Prince Alexis. 
The owner moved out shortly after our arrival 
and the whole place was turned over to him. 

In spite of the rain, which continued to fall in 
torrents, I thought I had never seen a more beau- 
tiful place than Vrgntze. Imagine a little L shaped 
valley between blue hills thickly clad with trees 
and starred with white villas. Through the valley 
runs a tiny river only about ten feet wide but 
making enough noise for a stream three times its 
size. On either bank are graveled walks which 
spread and wind away under great acacia and 
lime trees, and beyond the lovely park stand the 
villas of the townspeople, the shops, restaurants 
and cafes. 

In the park near the river is a large open 
pavilion in which sometimes a band played. 



THROUGH BEAUTIFUL SERBIA 85 

Nearby are the medicinal bath houses and mineral 
springs, for Vrgntze is a well known health resort, 
and the waters have all the virtues of those of 
Carlsbad or Ems. 

But everywhere in the pretty town were evi- 
dences of the suffering that comes in war's train. 

At the edge of the town is a large new hotel, 
the Therapia, which had been converted to a hos- 
pital by Professor Berry and his wife, Dr. Berry. 
Still further out, where the river spread in rip- 
pling shallows over a wide stony bed, was a long, 
low building — the Isolation Hospital. On the hill- 
side above the town was a hospital run by an 
English Military Medical Officer, Major Banks, 
and near it a Convalescent Hospital under Mr. 
Gwin of California. 

Many of the cafes and restaurants had been 
taken over and made into hospitals by the Ser- 
bians. In one I found Greek surgeons and a French 
matron, while among the nurses were Americans, 
English and Russians. The streets were full of 
convalescent officers and men, while the hospitals 
disclosed ghastly sights. Men lacking both legs 



86 A NATION AT BAY 

and an arm, others with one leg and no arms, 
men whose heads had been broken by shrapnel or 
shell splinters lying paralyzed, their tragic eyes 
following us as we passed. Young boys with 
minds unbalanced, sound of body but equally help- 
less, watched us stupidly, or shouted the mirth- 
less laugh of sheer madness. 

There was not room enough in the hospitals nor 
sufficient medical supplies for all the soldiers, 
so little or nothing could be done for the civil 
population. 

Mrs. St. Clair Stobart, a fine English woman, 
did establish roadside dispensaries where women 
and children could receive treatment. But, valu- 
able as her work was, it was only a drop in the 
bucket of the awful need. Only for typhus could 
aid be given elsewhere, for of course it was impera- 
tive that this disease be utterly stamped out. 

One day a woman staggered up to Major 
Banks' hospital and, falling on the door-step, died. 
With her were two little children, both within a 
few hours of death. A corner of a crowded ward 
was cleared for them and I saw them just before 




Ilvia 




o 



o 



THROUGH BEAUTIFUL SERBIA 87 

the merciful end. In the same ward lay two strong 
men struggling for breath. They also died that 
day of pneumonia. Round them, the cots nearly 
touching so cramped was the space, lay their com- 
rades who wished to get well only that they might 
go out again and fight the implacable enemy. 

On that day I went sadly back to my store- 
room at the Villa Agnes and began unpacking a 
great wooden case which had come from America. 
In it I found several parcels of body belts, "cholera 
belts" we call them out there, and in the corner 
of each was sewa a tiny American flag. A sudden 
rush of tears blinded me and I pressed the little 
flag to my lips and broke down completely. The 
thought of my own countrywomen giving their 
time and devotion to help us do our work, so far 
away in that little known part of Europe filled 
me with appreciative emotion. 



CHAPTER IX 

At Work 

When I offered myself for work in Serbia in 
the typhus epidemic, I thought I would be obliged 
to nurse the victims of that dread disease, but my 
orders were to take charge of the medical stores 
which we had brought and the further supplies 
which were to follow from various English and 
American sources. 

My duties at Vrgntze began at 6:30 in the 
morning, when I was usually foiuid in the store- 
room opening up for the day. The round of the 
hospitals followed, and when I had secured lists of 
their needs, I returned to the store-room, unpacked 
and stored the contents of the large cases of sup- 
plies of various sorts which were arriving fre- 
quently from English and American sympathiz- 
ers. Then I made duplicate lists of the require- 
ments of each hospital, packed the goods on 
stretchers, which were brought up to the Villa each 



AT WORK 89 

day by the prisoner-orderlies, and received and 
filed the receipts from the matrons, or storekeepers 
of the hospitals. 

Some of the hospitals, notably that of Profes- 
sor Berry, had their own direct sources of supply, 
but the drugs, instruments, dressings and clothing 
which had been collected by the Prince and Prin- 
cess Alexis did an infinite amount of good. 
By their great devotion and their thoughtful 
kindness to everyone around them, they endeared 
themselves to us all. They were called by the sol- 
diers "Our Prince" and "Our Princess," and no 
man was too ill or too sad to cheer, however feeble 
his voice, when the Prince looked back from the 
door after hours of friendly conversation with the 
invalids and called out bravely, "Till tomorrow, 
comrades !" 

The Princess has a beautifully trained voice, 
and is a most accomplished musician. There was 
a good piano in the Villa Agnes and each evening 
she would play and sing, to the comfort of us all 
after the often harrowing scenes of the day. 
Sometimes we would motor over to nearby 



90 A NATION AT BAY 

towns on market-day, and come back with our 
car loaded with rude pottery, or native rugs and 
osier mats for the stone floors of the Villa. 

About twice a week Princess Alexis would hale 
me forth from the store-room for a walk. We 
would go through the park and strike off into 
lanes where the fringy-petaled clematis made close 
fragrant curtains over the high, unkempt hedges 
on either side. 

These rambles were a great treat after the 
strain of the sights in the hospitals and the hard, 
often manual, labor in the store-room. We would 
return with our arms filled with the gorgeous wild 
flowers for which Serbia is famous, and these 
would be massed in the great earthen jars by the 
doors of the Villa Agnes and in the little salon. 
With books, photographs and beautiful pieces of 
old brocade from the inexhaustible trunks, the 
bare, rectangular rooms took on a comforting 
look of Home. 

The food was sparse and poor, but it was ex- 
quisitely cooked and daintily served. Now I hap- 
pened to be possessed of robust health and a 



AT WORK 91 

splendid appetite beyond what the others seemed 
to have, so these delicate meals did not satisfy 
me. However, I soon discovered a remedy. 

Before leaving Salonika, I had been romantically 
attracted by a sign advertising "Honey of Hymet- 
tus." Shades of the ancient Olympians — it was 
irresistible ! So when I started north I purchased 
a large wooden box (which got in everyone's way 
and was an absolute nuisance) containing four 
kilo jars of the famous honey. During the jour- 
ney I often regretted my sentimental lapse, for I 
am not at all fond of sweets of any kind, but at 
Vrgntze that honey was truly a god-send. 

So there might be no danger of my springing to 
the table and greedily devouring all the beautifully 
prepared but woefully skinny chicken which was 
to be "dinner" for four, all the small dish cf salad, 
which had been painfully procured at great ex- 
pense, and all the airy vanilla wafers which usu- 
ally formed our dessert, I would retire to my own 
room before the meal was served and, locking the 
door, swallow three or four spoonfuls of rich, 
cloying honey and then take my place at the 



92 A NATION AT BAY 

table wdth a politely dulled appetite. I never 
want to taste honey again! 

As there was no plumbing in tlie Villa, all water 
had to be brought from the public fountains in 
big tins hung on a pole across the shoulders of a 
servant. Our water-carrier was an Austrian pris- 
oner named Basil. It was particularly difficult to 
converse with him because, curiously enough, his 
only language was Russian, and that of such a 
poor quality that even the Serbs could hardly un- 
derstand him. For days he hung around the store- 
room door and tried to teU me something. 

From his contortions of face and body I was 
not quite sure whether he had a bad pain and 
wanted medicine or whether he desired me to get 
him a job as an acrobat. But at last I began to 
understand and to sympathize. He wished me to 
give him some clothes to replace the stained, old 
Austrian uniform he was wearing. When I had 
found him an outfit, he was the happiest man in 
Serbia, and the first time he appeared before the 
^ household we sat down on the door-step and 
laughed until we were weak. 



AT WORK 9S 

Now Basil had a queer shape, broad and heavy, 
with short sturdy legs, long arms and a round, 
bullet head. His face, at the first glance, looked 
like that of a thorough-going ruffian with its 
squinting eyes, thick, blubber lips and flat, broken 
nose. But when he smiled, you saw that he was 
just a battered, kindly, simple soul with the heart 
of a faithful dog. 

Imagine him then, in a pair of old dress 
trousers, heavily braided and six inches too long, 
a black calico shirt with large white stars 
and crescents printed on it, no collar but a 
big button at the neck of the shirt, evidently made 
of sealing wax, an excellent tweed shooting jacket 
with leather buttons and a belt which, not meet- 
ing, hung down his back below his knees. On his 
feet was a pair of glistening new "Arctics" and, 
coming down to his ears, which were forced out 
at an angle of 45 degrees, a flat-brimmed high- 
crowned derby hat of most ancient vintage. 

As long as he was in uniform, Basil had saluted 
us in approved military fashion, but from the 
moment when he burst upon the family's astounded 



94 A NATION AT BAY 

gaze in civilian clothing, Iiis salutation consisted 
in depressing the brim or his great hat until it 
stood up straight in the air, then releasing it and 
letting it fall again upon his ears with a loud 
"plop." 

At our first view of the transformation the 
Prince roared, the Princess shrieked, the maids 
giggled hysterically; the chef, looking out of 
his kitchen window, chuckled until we thought 
he would have apoplexy. But Basil stood grinning 
with pride before us. Later, he beckoned me to 
the back gate with mysterious gestures and showed 
me a grayish bundle which he raised carefully in 
the air and then kicked violently into the road. 
As it fell apart in the ditch, I saw that it was his 
discarded Austrian uniform. 

Another interesting member of the establish- 
ment was a Serbian gendarme, or soldier guard, 
named Ilyia, who had spent some time in the 
United States and spoke English quite well. He 
was a fine built fellow about six feet three inches 
tall, and broad in proportion and, though recently 
convalescent from a serious wound, was still quite 



AT WORK 95 

the strongest man I have ever seen. He would 
take the big Red Cross cases, which two men 
could hardly move, from the ox-carts at the gate 
and carry them up the steep five hundred yards of 
garden-path with apparent ease. 

He had made money in America and had opened 
a "cafe" in Pittsburg, where he was doing well, 
when the war began in the Balkans. His loyalty 
to Mother Serbia had brought him back to fight. 
One day. Prince Alexis asked him, "Ilyia, if you 
were so prosperous in the United States, why did 
you return to Serbia and leave it all?" 

"Well, Highness," was his reply, "you see I 
felt I just had to kill some of Serbia's enemies — 
and I've done it." 

When Ilyia was dressed in his dark blue uni- 
form with its scarlet pipings, the white, blue and 
scarlet enamel "Cocarde" on his smart cap and 
high, well-fitting, patent leather boots, he was a 
handsome and an imposing figure. 



CHAPTER X 
Austrian Pkisoners 

During the epidemic the Austrians, fearing in- 
fection, kept away from any possibility of contact 
with the Serbians. No fighting took place for 
many months and we were able to go about our 
work systematically without distraction. 

The Austrian prisoners at Vrgntzc were a 
strong, healthy-looking lot of men, and though 
their uniforms were somewhat ragged and stained 
they were quite sufficient for comfort and decency. 
In the Park near the Springs was a stone and 
brick building which was used as a fumigating 
station, while farther awaj', near the Post Office 
was the prisoners' wash house where the steaming 
tubs were always full of linen, and even cloth 
garments. 

The men moved about their work joking and 
whistling, seemingly well content to be busy and 
far from the battlefields. On the roads we would 

96 



AUSTRL\N PRISONERS 97 

meet squads of them marching to or from their 
work, and the discipHne was admirable as they 
swung along staring curiously at the Princess 
who, witli her golden hair and beautiful Paris 
gown§, naturally attracted attention. I may say 
her*etlfat, despite her dainty, fragile appearance, 
she did her full share of the hard and often dis- 
tasteful work that demanded so many pairs of 
willing hands. 

One day a group of prisoners stood at atten- 
tion as we passed, and among them I recognized a 
waiter who had often served me in a London res- 
taurant. They were always most respectful and 
never, I believe, gave any trouble to the authori- 
ties. The onl}' cause for complaint I ever 
had against the prisoners was that when Arctics 
were requisitioned by the hospitals and I sent them 
on the stretchers with other stores, one or two 
pairs would always disappear en route. However, 
one could hardly blame the men, since footgear was 
so scarce that half the time their bare feet were on 
the ground. What with the sharp, coarse gravel 
of the paths this was no joke. 



98 A NATION AT BAY 

They were always most obliging and would 
move heavy cases for me, open boxes, or do any- 
thing else I might want done. Occasionally I 
would give them a few cigarettes, for which they 
seemed most grateful. The Serbian soldiers did 
not mingle with them, but I never heard any rough 
words addressed to them nor saw them treated 
otherwise than kindly. 

In the hospitals, of course, sick or wounded 
prisoners were given the same consideration as 
the Serbs themselves. I saw one man lying at the 
inside end of the ward one day and apparently suf- 
fering greatly from the close heat of the place and 
a Serb, who was being carried in from the baths, 
had his carriers put him into that bed, giving up 
his own place by the window to the Austrian. 

The prisoners lived in barracks at the edge of 
the town and were emplo3'ed only for government 
work, but after Prince Alexis arrived one or two 
were allowed, as a reward for good conduct, to 
enter his personal service. This was very conve- 
nient, as few Serbs will take a menial position and 
servants are very difficult to get. The Prince was 




(y 



AUSTRIAN PRISONERS 99 

lucky in finding a tall, handsome fellow, who had 
been an upper waiter in one of the best London 
hotels, and who made an excellent butler. With 
the chauffeur's wife and the lady's maid he did 
most of the house work, while the chef and Basil 
took care of the kitchen and the servants' quar- 
ters, which formed a separate building near the 
house. 

The original dining room of the Villa was also 
an independent building, about sixty feet long by 
eighteen feet wide. This we used as our store- 
room. Along one side I ranged packing cases, 
one on the other to the height of nine feet, and 
thus formed a series of very convenient cupboards 
in which I could keep the various kinds of stores, 
well sorted, and within easy reach. In an alcove at 
the end of the room, under a great window which 
opened on a terrace planted with fragrant stand- 
ard roses, Prince Alexis had his desk, and here lie 
and Captain Georgevitch worked faithfully day 
after day. 

Among other things sent us from England, were 
thousands of pairs of knitted woolen wristlets that 



100 A NATION AT BAY 

had been made for the Indian troops, who were 
transferred from the Western front to Egypt be- 
fore these comforts were ready. As the Serbian 
soldiers needed socks more than wristlets, we rav- 
eled them out and had the wool reknitted bj^ Ser- 
bian ladies who volunteered for the work. We also 
had several thousand yards of flannel and a simi- 
lar quantity of heavy cotton material which they 
made up into shirts. Even then we could not give 
the men a change of anything as there were not 
enough garments for all of them to be fully clad 
once. 

In the center of the long store-room was 
a row of stout tables for the workers, and all along 
the opposite side and down one end of the 
room were heaps of army blankets, cases of drugs, 
instruments, tinned milks, foods for invalids, and 
great, gray-painted chests of Red Cross supplies. 

One day we received a large box with a black 
edged card tacked on it. Within were quantities of 
dainty baby clothes. These were soon sorted into 
sets and supplied to several poor, young mothers, 
widows of Serbian ofHcers. These were the hard- 



AUSTRIAN PRISONERS 101 

est of all to help, for they concealed their poverty 

so proudly that it took infinite tact to get them 

to accept anything at all. 
i Shortly after this Sir Thomas Lipton came 
/ to call on Prince Alexis. He was much impressed 

by our work and said that our store-room was 
i the best organized and best arranged he had seen 

iout there. I was much pleased, as he had seen 
them all, but, being an Irishman, it is probable the 
"Blarney" entered into his commendations. 

In spite of the scarcity of many things — sugar 
being often unobtainable, and candles costing 
sometimes two francs each — we got on fairly com- 
fortably, and came to realize how easily one can 
do without things that have heretofore been con- 
sidered indispensable. 

We all felt so remarkably well and strong that 
we began to look around for the probable cause. 
We thought we found it in the excellent water 
which was brought from the fountains and of 
which we drank large quantities, it being our only 
beverage. Wherever the Turk has been you will 
find fine wells since owing to his religion, which for- 



102 A NATION AT BAY 

bids wine or spirits, he will dig to any depth to 
gain an unfailing supply of pure water. For 
many who, like myself, will be unwilling in the 
future to patronize the German and Austrian 
"cure" places, I can strongly recommend Vryny- 
atchka Banya ("The Baths of Vrgntze"). 



CHAPTER XI 

The Return 

When the typhus epidemic was at its height 
very early in 1915, the proportion of deaths 
among those attacked was over eighty per cent. 
It seemed as if the whole population was dying. 

iWhen a stranger in a town fell ill his one desire 
was to return to his home, and no matter how far 
away he might be, he immediately set out on his 
journey. Of course he spread the infection right 
and left, so that the disease seemed to fly on wings 
among the simple and higlily gregarious people. 
When we found out a method of segregating the 
awful malady in our district, the improvement was 
immediate and within a very short time the mor- 
tality was reduced from eighty to twenty per 
cent. Each suspected case was placed in a special 
receiving room, where he was shaved from head to 
foot, even the eyebrows being removed. He was 
103 



104 A NATION AT BAY 

then bathed with paraffine or some such insecti- 
cide and placed in an observation ward. The 
vermin, which was the principal cause of the 
spread of the disease, now being eliminated, 
it was comparatively easy not only to cure 
the patient but to prevent any further spread 
of infection. 
I Many nurses and doctors died before the in- 
I vention of a special costume which rendered them 
i immune. This consisted of a long tunic girdled 
1 closely ; a pair of "Turkish" trousers bound tightly 
round the ankles ; the head covered by a cap which 
completely concealed the neck; rubber gloves on 
the hands ; the face and the insteps above the shoes 
were smeared with some ointment to repel the at- 
i tacks of vermin. From the first week that these 
precautions were adopted, not a nurse or doctor 
who strictly observed them, was attacked. By dint 
of hard work, and rigorous attention to the many 
necessary details of sanitation, by mid-summer, 
1915, the typhus epidemic had been practically 
stamped out. 



THE RETURN 105 

Then we found that, for some unknown cause, 
our supplies were falling off in quantity, besides 
arriving with great irregularity, so I was sent 
back to England to see what could be done to 
insure a steady and unfailing flow. 

As the train service was extremely poor, the 
Prince offered to take me over to Stalac where I 
could get a fairly good train to Nish. The Prin- 
cess also decided to accompany me on this first 
stage of my journey and we started at four 
o'clock in a cool, gray dawn. The mist clung 
round the hill tops and a damp wind blew in our 
faces. 

At Stalac we had a long wait, as the train 
was very late, but at last I was helped up the 
high steps of an incongruously luxurious rail- 
way car and, with kindly farewells, sent on my 
journey. As my command of the Serbian 
language extends only to a very limited number 
of words, Ilyia was sent with me to interpret 
and to look after me generally. I was to do 
many commissions, both in Nish and Salon- 



106 A NATION AT BAY 

ika, for their Highnesses, and Ilyla was to be also 
my messenger and burden bearer. 

At Nish I was met by a Professor Derocco, 

resident there, who had received a telegram from 

Prince Alexis to aid me as much as possible. By 

this time the rain was coming down in streams and 

wse took a carriage, (which I am firmly convinced 

was the original One Hoss Shay), and started out 

to seek Banks and Consulates wherein my business 

i lay. As I was to pass through Greece, Italy and 

\ France to England, it was necessary to have my 

■ passports viseed by the Consuls representing those 

I countries. The offices were full of people who also 

had important business to transact, and I had 

several long waits. However, as all things come 

to an end, at last I was free to seek food and rest, 

my mission accomplished. 

Professor Derocco had found a place which he 
assured me I would prefer to the hotels, as these 
latter were all so uncomfortably crowded, and he 
took me to a large private house away from the 
center of the town. We entered through a gate 
in a high stuccoed wall and found ourselves on a 



THE RETURN 107 

flagged path in a rain-drenched garden. Around 
the corner of the house we went up a short flight 
of steps and knocked at a glass paneled door. 
It instantly was opened by a quaint and charming 
old lady whose absolute replica hovered in the 
background. The large hall was lined with big 
wooden coffers and presses. Through the cur- 
tained doors of these furnishings I saw piles of 
the heavy hand-woven sheets and pillow cases, 
embroidered bed covers, and other linens that 
are the pride of a Serbian household. The shelves 
of another revealed row upon row of glass jars of 
fruit and syrups of which the people are very 
fond. 

I was ushered into a pleasant room with great 
shuttered windows opening on the street. The 
walls of the room were ornamented with bright- 
hued native tapestries and the table cover was a 
brilliant specimen of hand-woven silk and linen 
threads finely embroidered. Coffee was brought 
in on a beautifully carved tray and that invari- 
able adjunct to Serbian hospitality, a large carafe 
of sparkling cold water. I was told that this was 



108 A NATION AT BAY 

the apartment used by Prince Paul, a nephew of 
the King, on his visits to Nish. 

Professor Derocco left me to rest and went 
out to attend to some business for me, as 
the rain made it extremely disagreeable to get 
about the awful streets, and he was determined 
to save me all the effort possible. 

At four o'clock he returned and, bidding my kind 
hostesses adieu, we drove over the yawning gaps in 
the rough cobble stones to the station. On the 
way I saw little groups of thin, ragged people 
crouching in the doorways, spattered by the pelt- 
ing rain and by the mud from the wheels of our 
rickety, furiously-bounding cab. These, I was in- 
formed, were refugees from the North and East 
whose villages had been devastated by the Aus- 
[ trians and Bulgarians. Hungry, wet, uncom- 
I plaining, they sat there believing that soon all 
I would be well and they would be able to return, 
1 rebuild their homes and begin again to culti- 
; vate their little farms in peace and security. 
At the station we found a fairly dry table in 
the cafe on the platform and here we dined on 



THE RETURN 109 

cabbage soup, coarse brown bread, goat's cheese, 
dry prunes and beer. Ilyia appeared when it was 
time to entrain. As Professor Derocco had ar- 
ranged to pay a visit to his young daughter, who 
was living with his aunt at Uskub, he accom- 
panied me. For hours in the train we talked of 
Serbia and her prospects. The Professor, who 
is one of the government's cartographers, pro- 
duced one of his maps and I learned far more of 
Serbian geography than I had ever known before. 
So engrossed in this study was I that if was 
after midnight before I remembered the full day I 
had had and my need of sleep. 

My escort bade me goodnight and sent the 
porter to make my bed, and I was soon in a log- 
like slumber. This would have lasted, I feel sure, 
well into the next afternoon, had I not been sud- 
denly roused by a loud and persistent rapping on 
the door. When I opened it there stood Professor 
Derocco, looking irritatingly fresh and immacu- 
late, bidding me good-by and begging me to let 
him know if he could serve me in any way either 
then or in the future. I did appreciate his kind- 



no A NATION AT BAY 

ness but, oh, how I regretted my interrupted 
sleep. 

Arriving at Ghevghelia I was entertained 
by the officials who provided a light repast 
with a graceful and kindly hospitality that made 
it as acceptable as a banquet. Then again, the 
dull, swampy plains of Macedonia and, just 
as dusk began to deepen, Salonika. 

A telegram had been sent to the Olympos Palace 
Hotel, but the courier who met me said that every 
room was taken and people were even sleeping 
in the reception rooms, while the writing-room had 
been turned into a dormitory for officers. How- 
ever, he said he would take care of me or die in 
the attempt. So, with gigantic Ilyia on the box 
and the courier leaning out the door of the cab 
and shouting to clear the way, we rattled over 
the stones and around the corners until we pulled 
up before the Hotel d'Amerique. 

The old reception clerk showed me into a large 
room with three great four-post beds, all made 
up and with mosquito curtains snugly tucked in. 
I asked how much he wanted for it, and with an 



iTUE RETURN 111 

air of great surprise, he inquired if I meant "all of 
it." I said I certainly did, and he mumbled that 
the place was crowded and it would be very ex- 
pensive. After a good deal of grumbling and sly 
calculation he assured me he could not let me have 
it under eight francs ! I sent him for as much 
water as he could bring me — about four pails full 
— ^had a good refreshing wash and slept. 

The next day was a busy one, and though my 
boat did not sail until midnight, there was none 
too much time. Ilyia was invaluable, and I kept 
him going from early morning until I bade him 
good-by at the dock. When I tried to give him 
a gold piece for good luck he refused it, saying he 
was honored in serving me since I was a friend of 
his country. I was deeply touched and we shook 
hands. I got to bed at twelve o'clock and stayed 
there until noon the next day. 



CHAPTER XII 
Doing My Bit in England and Ameeica 

The journey to Naples was uneventful. There 
were some interesting people on board, mostly 
Italian Reservists returning to join their regi- 
ments. Among them was an "air-man," who had 
been training Bulgarian aviators (how he must 
regret it now). There was also an Italian editor 
from Constantinople and two Roman ladies, sis- 
ters, returning from Jerusalem. On tliis boat I 
made the acquaintance of Mr. Francis Markoe, 
who had been working with Lady Paget's unit in 
Serbia all through the typhus epidemic and who 
is now a member of the Serbian Relief Committee 
of America and still working faithfuUy for 
Serbia. 

We went overland from Naples to Paris and 
when, passing along the Riviera, I saw men and 
women beautifully dressed, care-free, over-fed, I 
wondered which was the dream, — the suffering, 
hungry, ragged, courageous and devoted people 

112 



DOING MY BIT 113 

I had just left, or this frivolous, perfumed, laugh- 
ing crowd of pleasure seekers. The contrast was 
astounding. 

On my arrival in London, I found the Serbian 
Relief Fund was packing and sending out large 
cases every week. Mrs. Carrington Wilde told 
me the organization was receiving splendid 
response to its appeals, and after I had seen the 
fine corps of volunteer workers packing and label- 
ing the bales of clothing and the great boxes of 
other much needed supplies, I felt happier. 

Soon after mj return. Captain Georgevitch ar- 
rived with a collection of war trophies consisting 
of Austrian war rifles, knapsacks, shells, hand 
grenades, swords, drums and many other interest- 
ing trophies collected on Serbian battlefields. 
These he placed on exhibition in some of the large 
stores in London and in other towns as well. Win- 
chester among them, where I was able to arrange 
for a show of them at the Guild Hall. We charged 
a small admission fee and afterwards auctioned off 
the things. The affair was a great success and 
we made a good sum to be sent back to 



114 A NATION AT BAY 

Serbia in the form of drugs and other necessaries. 
In October, having finished my work in Eng- 
land, I wished to get my passports to return to 
Serbia, but the situation was by this time so grave, 
owing to the strong Austrian offensive before Bel- 
grade, that the American Ambassador refused to 
let me go It was not long before we heard the 
terrible news of the steady advance of the enemy 
forces, the capture of Kraguevatz and then the 
retreat of the Serbian army — fighting every 
inch of the way — and the awful tragedy of the 
evacuation. 

I thought of my many friends in Belgrade, of 
the invalids, the maimed and the old who had to be 
left behind, and my heart was torn with fear and 
sorrow over their inevitable doom. 
t I knew that none but the very strongest could 
I survive, that the weak and the ill would die of 
privation and that a deliberate policy of exter- 
mination would be carried on by the invaders. We 
-: know now that one-quarter of the population has 
I already been destroyed and we fear that this is a 
I too-conservative estimate. 



DOING MY BIT 115 

' Unless this war ends favorably for us, Serbia 
, will be but a memory and her brave and splendid 

(people will die out, butchered by the crudest and 
most vindictive enemy the world has ever known. 
\ Serbia who held the gates on the East, as Belgium 
I did on the West until the armies of England and 

IFrance could take their stand; Serbia who, like 

I 

i Belgium, has been crucified and to-day is gasping 
out her life under the tortures of our enemies ! 

After taking part in the dreadful retreat over 
the Albanian mountains, Princess Alexis wrote 
me imploring my help. She and the Prince had 
started with their household in the automobile and 
the ambulance, she said, but on reaching the 
mountains had to abandon these vehicles. 

The Princess wrote: "We burned them so that 
they should not benefit the enemy." She and her 
husband had passed through the awful ordeal, suf- 
fering from cold and hunger as did the poorest 
peasant in that fearful march, and those who 
saw her say she worthily upheld the reputation of 
our American women for courage and endurance. 

After her arrival in Rome, she wrote a restrained 



116 A NATION AT BAY 

and unsensational account of the horrible journey 
which was published in the New York papers. In 
it she nowhere speaks of her own personal mis- 
eries, but I have testimony of eye witnesses that 
she and Prince Alexis endured cheerfully with the 
others all the suffering and hardships. 

After receiving her letter, I came home to 
America, knowing that if I could only tell the 
people of the terrible need of Serbia their generous 
hearts would prompt them to give. Nor was I 
mistaken. I myself joined the Serbian Relief 
Committee of America and undertook to deliver a 
series of lectures on Serbia. In that way I soon 
raised a substantial sum for relief work among 
the refugees on the Island of Corsica. 

My object was to get as much help as possible 
to the destitute people, with the utmost speed, 
since every hour and every day counted tragically 
against them in suffering and death. 

So as the Serbian Relief Committee of America 
had at that time no suitable organization in the 
Balkans with which to administer relief to the 
refugees, I requested them to allow all funds 



DOING MY BIT 117 

wliich might be raised at joint meetings by Miss 
Burke, an Englishwoman who had now joined 
me, and myself to be turned over to the SIcottish 
Womens' Hospitals (whose representative Miss 
Burke was). They had a relief station already 
established on Corsica and could give help without 
delay. As we cabled the amount in hand, the 
Scottish Women's Hospitals would draw upon 
their own funds pending the arrival of our 
money to replace the sums. 

The most successful meeting held during the two 
months that we worked together took place at 
the Breakers at Palm Beach, and at this one meet- 
ing we raised enough money to establish a tent 
hospital of two hundred beds on Corsica which 
was to be known as "The American Unit of the 
Scottish Womens' Hospital." 

This meeting was held under the patronage of 
some of the most prominent citizens from all over 
America, and our two most generous subscribers 
were Mrs. Alexander Hamilton Rice and A. 
Kingsley Macomber, Esq. In consequence of our 
arrangement with the Scottish Womens' Hospital, 



118 A NATION AT BAY 

hundreds of lives were saved which otherwise 
would have been lost for lack of immediate aid. 

Since then we have been able to send really good 
sums to carry on the work of feeding, clothing and 
restoring to health those destitute and unhappy 
people. The Serbian Relief Committee was so 
fortunate as to interest Dr. Edward Ryan of the 
American Red Cross in its work, and the last train 
loads of food sent into Serbia from Roumania by 
him were largely contributed to from our fund. 

America was neutral then, the greatest and the 

I richest country in the world. Her people pro- 

i 

1 vided with every comfort, every luxury. She was 

so fat and well fed it was difficult to realize that 
f actual starvation stalked throughout so many 
unhappy cities in Europe. America did not real- 
ize that this war so intimately concerned her and 
that she would inevitably be drawn in. For a time 

j there seemed to be something of the spirit which 
prompted the man of old to say, "Am I my broth- 

'i er's keeper," and to us, who had seen the trend 
of events, it was tragic that our country should 
be so blind. 



CHAPTER XIII 

Through the War Zone 

In August, 1916, we of the Serbian Relief Com- 
mittee began to feel a touch of impatience in let- 
ters from our American Consuls at Athens and 
Salonika and, as personal business called me to 
England, I offered to extend my journey to the 
near East to see what could have happened. 

We were now a world at war, and sea travel 
having become more and more dangerous, I had 
been warned that it was most difficult to get per- 
mission to cross, but owing to the good offices of 
Mr. Arthur Lee and Mr. John Barrett, both of 
Washington, I was soon supplied with a passport 
and with a letter from the Secretary of State, 
recommending me to the courtesies of the Ameri- 
can Ambassadors, Ministers and Consuls in the 
allied and neutral countries through which I must 
pass. 

119 



120 A NATION AT BAY 

It was the third week in August when I sailed. 
There were no trippers, no gamblers, no "little 
actresses" and few New York dressmakers or mil- 
liners on board. Everyone was going on serious 
business, mostly connected with the war, which 
was nearly the sole topic of conversation. Many 
people then, as they are today, were perfectly 
certain that — "Germany cannot last out another 
six months." There were several alarms of sub- 
marines and one man was so depressed by the 
sense of danger that he jumped overboard and was 
lost. 

On our arrival at the mouth of the Mersey, 
we found ourselves enveloped in a dense fog and 
were obliged to wait several hours before we could 
go up to Liverpool. Just behind us, when we at 
last did berth, was a large ship filled with Ger- 
man prisoners that had arrived that day from the 
Cameroons. They lined the rail and stared at us 
curiously, and when two other New York women 
and I passed near them, one of the younger ones 
shouted something about "Amerikanerin" and 
spat viciously in our direction. I saw an English 



(THROUGH THE WAR ZONE 121 

sailor grab him by the collar and there was trouble 
I for a few minutes. 

Arriving at the Carlton Hotel in London, I was 
informed that I must report as an "alien" at the 
nearest police station within twenty-four hours. 
So the next morning I went to Vine Street, and 
had a pleasant interview with a nice old police 
sergeant, who said I must let him know the day 
before I wished to leave London. 

As soon as he had given me my papers, I 
began to inquire about permission to go to 
France. The French authorities were very strict 
about allowing civilians to enter the country and 
the English were nearly as obdurate about let- 
ting them out of England. But on appealing to 
Colonel Walker, at the Home Office, my way was 
made smooth by a letter from him to the officer 
in command at the French Consulate-General. 

As there had been submarines in the English 
Channel lately, the boats often did not sail for 
several days together and when they did go, of 
course, they were very crowded. Armed with my 
passports, credentials, letters and a stack of pho- 



122 A NATION AT BAY 

tographs, I went to the Consulate very early in 
the day and obtained, with little delay, a French 
passport, which was warranted to get me into 
France but not to get me out. Then back to Vine 
Street to tell the Man in Blue of my intention to 
leave. 

As a former employee of mine was lying 
wounded in a Red Cross hospital at Southampton, 
I applied for an "identity card" to enable me to 
visit him, but the old sergeant said, "Oh, you won't 
need that as you are to sail from Southampton. 
Just report at the police station when you get 
there and they won't 'urt you." 

When I saw poor Mursell, my faithful gardener 
of happier days, on crutches and heard that he 
had been wounded in the legs, he seemed to think 
that I ought to have an explanation. As he is 
only five feet four inches in height he was, for a 
time, ineligible for military service, but after a 
while "Bantam Regiments" were formed and he 
was among the first to join and was the tallest 
man in his regiment ! 
\ "Yes, madam," he said, "I caught a shell- 




^g^ 

^^^p^^^* 





tfc ft' 



Mb 



Bringing in .>i(.k ii\ilian> al \ i\naUlika l>an\ a 




Prince George of Serbia, Admiral Troubridge and the 
author 



THROUGH THE WAR ZONE 123 

splinter in my legs. Wliy a man six foot four 
could have been wounded there." He was quite 
cheerful and happy, in spite of the pain which 
he was suffering, to have "done his bit" in the 
great war. 

On my way to dinner in the town, I remembered 
that my presence at the police station was re- 
quired, so I went there. The sergeant on duty 
asked my business. 

"I'm an alien and am here without an identity 
card," I said. "Are 30U going to arrest me.'*" 

"What for, madam.''" he asked, 

"Oh, I just thought you might want to," I re- 
plied. 

"Wouldn't think of such a thing. And I didn't 
know you was a h'alicn, madam." This cour- 
teously. 

I looked surprised and he laughed and said 
he remembered often having seen my husband 
drive with me down the High Street when we lived 
near Southampton and he 'ad h' always supposed 
that I was H'english though he knew that Mr. 
Farnam was a H'american. 



124 A NATION AT BAY 

At eleven o'clock the following night I went 
on board the crowded Channel steamer, but we did 
not leave the dock until six o'clock, broad day- 
light, and then simply scooted across. The cross- 
ing was really dangerous and every one of the 
several hundred passengers kept as sharp a look- 
out as if he were personally responsible for the 
safety of the ship. However, we landed at Le 
Havre unharmed, and after endless formalities 
were allowed to proceed to Paris. Such a long 
journey! We seemed to stop at every barn and 
cottage on the route and arrived at dead of night, 

(as hungry and cross as if our troubles and dis- 
comforts were all important. 

But just as we finished the short examination 
( at the station gates, a train-load of wounded 
j French soldiers came in and the first men were 
i carried past us on their stretchers to the waiting 
\ ambulances. We stood ashamed of our peevish- 
? ness when we saw the glowing eyes shining in the 
': dim light and heard the feeble voices shout "Vive 
'\l3i France." 
\ The men about me took off their hats and 



THROUGH THE WAR ZONE 125 

the Grossest, most cantankerous woman of us 
all, who had made the journey even more 
uncomfortable than need be by her constant 
grumbhng, ran forward weeping and tried to kiss 
one pathetic lad whose blanket lay hideously flat 
where his legs should have been. 

The streets of Paris were dark and the chauf- 
feurs seemed to drive more recklessly than ever* 
I was glad to reach my hotel and find a cool, clean 
bed ready for me. 

My first visit was to Dr. Milenko Vesnitch, 
Serbian Minister to France. We had an hour of 
discussion on the situation in Serbia and as to 
what was advisable for the Serbian Relief Com- 
mittee of America to concentrate on in future. 
He said that the needs of the population still in 
Serbia were most piteous and urgent, also 
that we should form a fund to supply seeds and 
farming implements to help to restore the people 
when the war is over. He also suggested that 
America should take up the hospital and medical 
work among the Serbian troops as this was sadly 
needed. 



126 A NATION AT BAY 

Dr. Vesnitch thought it unnecessary for me 
to go to Corfu as Miss Helen Losanitch was 
already on the spot and could report on condi- 
tions there and Corsica. But he said I should 
go to Salonika and talk with Serbs there to get 
a full idea of what was required. Also, he thought 
it advisable for me to go to Geneva and see M. 
Navelle who represents Serbian Relief there. 

The French authorities were most kind and 
gave me the necessary papers to leave Paris with- 
out delay. At eight o'clock my train, packed 
with convalescent soldiers, who would never be 
able to fight again, on their way to their homes 
and many pale, emaciated civilians who were seek- 
ing health among the Swiss mountains, pulled out 
for the frontier. 

In my compartment there was a young girl, 
clinging frantically to a tall handsome Serb- 
ian officer who, when the train was about to 
start, placed her, fainting, in my arms and 
begged me in a broken voice to take care of her. 
Later I learned that she had been a governess in 
a well-to-do family in Belgrade and had fled before 



THROUGH THE WAR ZONE 127 

the enemy, with her employers. The officer was 
her fiance whom she had met again unexpectedly 
at Corfu, and who had been sent to Paris with 
important papers, and was thus able to take care 
of her on her long journcj-. 

The poor girl was very ill as the result 
of the hardships she had undergone and passed 
from one fainting fit into another until I was 
nearly distracted. However, on reaching the 
Swiss border I found a party of English nurses 
who said they would take charge of her, as they 
were remaining there for some daj's and she was 
clearly not fit to go on. We sent a telegram to 
her father who, I heard afterward, came and took 
her home. 

On my arrival in Geneva I went to the Ameri- 
can Consulate for information as to what must 
be done before attempting to enter Italy. The 
Consul-General told me that it would be necessary 
for me to see the Italian Minister in Berne, and 
it would be at least ten days before I would 
be allowed to go, if at all, since instructions re- 



128 A NATION AT BAY 

garding me must come from Rome. This was a 
blow. 

As soon as M. Navelle's office was open, I went 
to him. He reported that Dr. Ryan, of the Ameri- 
can Red Cross, who was, or lately had bees, in 
Vienna, was hopeful over the condition of the 
country but we feared, on reading more recent 
statements of other observers, that possibly the 
Doctor was unduly optimistic. Since then these 
fears have been tragically realized. 

The reports as to the conditions of the Serbian 
prisoners in Austrian prison camps were heart- 
rending and we agreed that aid to these starving 
men must be rushed at once by the Swiss Com- 
mittee. As many of the English and French pris- 
oners had so often said they could not have sur- 
vived had it not been for the parcels of food sent 
them by their families and friends, we could well 
imagine the awful needs of these Serbian soldiers 
with no one to help them, their country being com- 
pletely at the mercy of a cruel and vindictive enemy 
and their families destitute and living in abject 
misery. IM. Navclle promised to send a full report 



THROUGH THE WAR ZONE 129 

at once to our American Committee so that no 
time should be lost and money and supplies might 
be forwarded to such an extent as our funds would 
allow. 

At one o'clock the following morning, in a pour- 
ing rain storm, I left for Berne. I arrived at 
four-thirty and had a few hours' sleep before the 
Legations opened. 



CHAPTER XIV 
Eastwakd Ho! 

Our Minister to Switzerland, Mr^Stovalla was 
very kind but held out no hope that the Italian 
Minister would let me go into Italy until he had 
received advices from Rome. However, he gave 
me a note to the Minister and I took a cab to the 
Legation. The driver stopped at an iron gate in 
a high wall and as I entered a great "police" dog 
came swiftly around the corner of the house but 
calmed down when I spoke to him. While we 
were making friends, the Minister appeared in the 
garden and seemed surprised that the dog was so 
amiable as he was usually not at all friendly to 
strangers. 

Then I was sent over the ChanceUerie, which 
was next door, and was told to state my busi- 
ness to the Secretary. By the time the Minister 
came in, about ten minutes later, my passport had 

130 



EASTWARD HO! 131 

been examined and all mj papers were in order. 
He shook hands and wished me good luck and I 
asked, "When may I hope to go, Your Excel- 
lency ?" 

"Why you can catch the 12:50 if you make 
haste," he said, smiling. I fled. 

Back to the hotel — ordered my bill as I rushed 
to the elevator — grabbed my bags, paid my ac- 
count on my way to a waiting cab, and hopped 
into the train three minutes before it pulled out ! 

At Iselle, on the Italian frontier, the examina- 
tion of travelers was very strict and for some 
reason I was left to the last. When I went before 
the examiners, the Chief, a dapper-looking young 
man, rose and bowed, asked me a few questions, 
waved my papers aside, stamped my passport 
"Iselle" and "Entrata" and handed it to m.c with 
another smile and bow; I thanked him thinking, 
"how kind everybody is," and started out. 

But the man snapped "Nella camerata" and I 
was taken into a little room, stripped and searched. 
When I returned I found a group of men plunging 
their hands into my dressing bag and suitcase and 



132 A NATION AT BAY 

turning the contents upside down. Every scrap of 
paper was scrutinized and discussed and every 
garment shaken out and held up before this crowd 
of men. The person who had examined me was 
the only other woman in the place. 

A soldier found a pack of worn playing cards 
in one of the bags and told me these were forbid- 
den. He said, "I must destroy them." I was so 
angry by this time, I could hardly contain myself 
but I said smiling, "Do what you like with them. 
Give them to your friends, or your children, if 
you wish." He turned very red and tore them 
in bits. 

Into this heated scene strode the Chief and de- 
manded every paper I had with me. His ques- 
tions were searching and peculiarly insulting 
while his manner was that of one who was dealing 
with a particularly vicious criminal. I handed 
over my credentials, my notes, card case, letters 
and even the newspaper I had been reading when 
I left the train. The latter he threw on the floor 
and in a very few minutes I saw that he had little 
or no knowledge of English. An elderly gentle- 



EASTWARD HO! 133 

man who seemed quite ashamed of the treatment 
given me, offered to read the various papers, 
which he did witli some difficulty. 

Then followed a long and very noisy argument. 
I gathered the first man had decided the minute 
he saw me that I was a spy, and his manner made 
me believe that my ultimate (Latin) destination 
would be the rock-hewn, undersea dungeons of 
some noisome Italian jail! His disappointment, 
when he found there could be no charge made 
against me, was a positive pleasure for me to 
witness. 

My letters from the Secretary of State and 
from the American Ambassador in London (writ- 
ten for an earlier journey but equally good on 
this one) were too much for him. So at last I 
was allowed to go — after he had flung my papers 
down so that half of them fell on the floor and I 
had to pick them up. 

Thinking it wise to show how dignified I 
could be under adverse circumstances, I sailed 
out with head high, smihng but with a hot, 
red spot on either cheek, only to be followed 



134 A NATION AT BAY 

by a roar of laughter. On reaching my com- 
partment I found that the desired effect had 
been rather dashed by a yard or two «f pink rib- 
bon from a forgotten bow that trailed behiad rae, 
and had in some way become entangled with 
a greasy paper bag so that my haughty progress 
must have resembled that of an indignant kite ! 

At Milan I found that the train for Rome 
had been gone an hour, so, lugging my bags which 
grew heavier and heavier, I went out into the 
rainy streets, discovered a small but comfortable 
hotel near the station, and had another all too- 
short night's rest. 

At six-twenty, in a violent downpour, my 
train left for Rome and there I was lucky 
in catching the Naples Express. In the 
dining-car my seat happened to be opposite that 
of an Italian naval officer who glared at me 
ferociously all through dinner. When the coffee 
was served he could bear it no longer and pointing 
to the large enameled Red Cross, which I always 
wore when traveling in the war zone, he demanded, 
"What is that you are wearing, signora.^" 



EASTWARD HO! 135 

When I told him that it was the Royal Order of 
the Serbian Red Cross, he looked rather flat and 
said that seeing the two-headed eagle on it he 
could not think it anything but Hunnish. 

At midnight the train crawled into Naples and 
my bed soon claimed me. In the morning I had 
developed such a cold that my voice had nearly 
gone. I asked when the next boat was to leave 
for Athens and the clerk said at noon that day, 
but I would have to apply for permission and 
then wait ten days for advices from Rome. I 
simply sighed "That's an old story," and sought 
the American Consul. 

Mr. White, the Consul, was most sympathetic 
but he did not know what he could do except 
to send his secretary with me to the Prefectura, 
which he did. Mr. Garguilo first got my 
passport viseed by the Greek Consul then took 
me to the Italian authorities. We found our man 
in a big dingy room which was packed to suffoca- 
tion with Greek, Corsican and Sicilian seamen and 
I suspected that they each and all lived exclusively 
on garlic. 



136 A NATION AT BAY 

Mr. Garguilo forced his way to the desk 
and talked a few minutes. The official looked over 
at me, stamped my passport, shook hands with 
Mr. Garguilo and turned again to his seamen. We 
got in Mr. White's car, which had been waiting, 
called at the hotel for my bags and went on board 
the steamer. Just as easy as that ! 

The boat was an awful tub and the accommoda- 
tions were most primitive. The cabins were in 
pairs opening, one on each side, on tiny corridors 
which ran at intervals from the dining salon. In 
the cabins were two berths on the inner wall and 
one under the port hole. That was all. Not a 
chair or a wash basin or any other thing but 
just those three extremely uninviting berths. At 
the end of each corridor was a basin with two 
tall taps standing so high above it that they 
splashed all over the place whenever they were 
turned on. One day a beautiful little eel, about 
five inches long, came merrily through into my 
tooth-wash glass. 

One could secure a little privacy by locking 
the door into the dining salon, but there was no 



EASTWARD HO! 137 

guarantee that one's opposite neighbors would not 
want to wash and pounce out at inopportune mo- 
ments. In the morning I managed by rising very 
early, and during the day I would watch until 
my neighbors were on deck, then lock the corridor 
door until I had had a soul-satisfying scrub. 

The food was horrible and the service worse. 
We had terrific storms and there were frequent 
rumors of submarines — though how anyone could 
have detected their presence in such rough seas 
passes my comprehension. 

At Patras we got the news of the flight of Mr. 
Venizelos to Crete and immediately the young 
Greeks on board were aflame with patriotism. 

As has been often told, King Constantine of 
Greece had been more than suspected of playing 
a double game with the Allies. His former Prime 
Minister, Eleuthcrios Venizelos, great patriot and 
true friend of the Allies, had protested in vain 
against the secret pro-Germanism of the King's 
policy but in vain. The Queen, a sister of the 
Kaiser, had a most malign influence over her hus- 
band and he was as wax in her hands. While 



138 A NATION AT BAY 

King Constantine was assuring the Allies of his 
friendly neutrality, he waj secretly corresponding 
with WiUielm of Germany and assuring him that 
it was only fear of Allied pressure that restrained 
him from openly declaring his sympathy with the 
Central Powers. 

Nearly every one of the Greek patriots on our 
ship left us to go by a vessel just about to leave 
the harbor, which would arrive in Athens a few 
hours before we should. They declared their in- 
tention of defying the King and aiding Mr. Veni- 
zelos in setting up a Government which would in- 
sure the integrity of Greece and balk the Pro- 
German plot of the Court. Many of these young 
men I afterwards saw in Salonika with the forces 
of the Provisional Government. 

On arrival at Athens, we found the whole town 
bumming with excitement. The guards around 
the palace were doubled and at all hours of the 
day and night small groups of cavalry would dash 
past the hotel or we would hear the shuffle and 
tramp of hoofs. Squads of French marines 
were marching through the principal streets 



EASTWARD HO! 139 

and one night a mob threatened to stone the 
French Legation. No one was allowed to walk 
on the Legation side of the street after that. 

The first morning I was in Athens a friend said 
that if I would ask I could have an audience with 
the Queen, but my cold was so bad that it seemed 
unwise to do so since I did not wish to court 
influenza. In the afternoon a similar suggestion 
was made with regard to an interview with Prin- 
cess Andrew, sister-in-law of the King, to which 
I gave the same excuse. 

I hoped to see Mr. Venizelos and hear from his 
own lips the true state of affairs, if I could get to 
Salonika (I believe that it was well known in the 
Greek Court that I had no desire to see the Queen 
before I did know the truth). The American Min- 
ister, Dr. Garrett-Droppers, assured me that this 
was impossible as Salonika was a "port of war'* 
and entirely under military control. No person 
who was not actually engaged in some way in the 
conduct of the war, was supposed to be allowed to 
go there and the restrictions were very severe. 



140 A NATION AT BAY 

However, he offered to introduce me to Sir Fran- 
cis Elliott, the British Minister. 

The interview was very short. Sir Francis 
seemed in a very nervous state, which was small 
wonder considering the heavy responsibilities de- 
volving upon him. So after Dr. Droppers had 
told him my aims and wishes, I spoke up: 

"Sir Francis, I know how busy you are 
and so I will not waste your time. If you can 
let me go say so, and if you cannot I'll just go 
away and try to be satisfied." The Minister 
looked at me sharply a moment. 

"We'll see what we can do," he replied. 

Calling his secretary, he sent us down stairs to 
the Bureau des Allies. Here I filled in the usual 
application form and produced the perpetually 
required photographs. Then I was ushered out 
into the garden where a thick-set, youngish-look- 
ing man in a bowler hat, looked into my very 
soul and asked a few more questions. Then he 
asked Dr. Droppers something which I did not 
hear, and turning to me, said, "This passport 
must be viseed by the French, English, Italian and 



EASTWARD HO! 141 

American Consuls here. That will take time but 
when it is done you may go to Salonika." 

"I'll start on it now so as to sail tomorrow,'* 
I answered. Everybody laughed at my hurry 
and the official said: 

"Well, if you are in such haste, I will attend to 
it for you. It will probably cost about fifteen 
francs in Consular fees and I will send the pass- 
port around to you, in order, this evening." 

I was amazed at his kindness, for everybody 
was rushed to death in Athens at that time owing 
to the unsettled state of Greek affairs and the 
very real danger to the Legation from Anti- 
Venizelist mobs. 

During my short stay in Athens I was much 
surprised at the very outspoken way in which the 
Greek situation was discussed by the public. In 
restaurants, cafes, shops and hotels no one mod- 
erated his voice in commending Mr. Venizelos and 
criticising the King. I heard officers in uniform 
openly say that if Constantine did not come out 
plainly on the side of the Allies at once they 
would join the ex-Prcmicr in Salonika on his 



142 A NATION AT BAY 

arrival there, which was expected to take place 
about ten days later. 

The hairdresser at the hotel told mc gravely 
that Mr. Venizelos was "divine" and that his every 
word was "inspired by God." The man was in- 
telligent and fairly well educated and said 
thousands of Athenians felt and believed as he 
did. I was mucli interested as I had heard both 
foreign residents and Greek officers say this was 
the popular feeling. 

In the evening a messenger arrived with my 
passports. The next morning I spent at New 
Phaleron where I inspected the Frothingham In- 
stitute, an establishment where Serbian orphans 
were being cared for by the great generosity of 
John Frothingham of New York. 

These children had been gathered from refugee 
camps where they were wandering forlorn and in 
terrible condition, having become separated from 
their parents. I was told that all had been in 
an extremely bad state when taken in charge by 
the institute. Then they were starved and ill, 



EASTWARD HO! 143 

suffering from skin diseases, frost bites and vari- 
ous injuries. 

But when I saw them they were well and 
looked happy, though on many of the little 
faces there were the ineffaceable traces of the suf- 
fering they had undergone. They filed before 
me, shaking hands solemnly, and saying in Eng- 
lish, "How do you do." I had come prepared with 
a large box of sugared almonds, one of which I 
popped into each little mouth to the surprise and 
joy of the recipients. 

Then the boys and girls stood in a group and 
sang the Serbian National Anthem and "Yankee 
Doodle came to town, riding in a ponec." Even 
the tiniest tot put up his little head, opened his 
wee mouth wide and sang out lustily. 

While I was talking to the children one was 
referred to as "Our bad boy." The boy 
evidently understood what was said for he 
hung his head and looked very sheepish. Then 
they told me that one of his exploits within the 
past twenty-four hours had been to climb a tele- 
graph pole in front of the institute and encourage 



144 A NATION AT BAY 

the little boys to do the same until the poles from 
end to end of the road were draped with cheering 
Serbian orphans. And another of his pranks was 
to turn the tap of the big water reservoir to see 
the water splash and run away down the dusty 
garden. As all the water had to be brought by 
hand, this was quite a serious piece of mischief. 
However, I looked at him and said: 

"I like bad boys for I believe that if a child 
knows he is bad he generally tries very hard to 
be good, and, if he tries hard enough he generally 
succeeds in laying the foundation of a good 
character and becomes a fine man — so I do like 
bad boys." This seemed a surprising point of 
view and all the children said they would try to be 
good! When I went away the children all stood 
on the steps and cheered lustily, "Hurrah for 
America." 

At noon, Miss Simmonds, an American Red 
Cross nurse who has done wonderful work for the 
Serbians, joined me on board one of the small 
steamers and after many formalities we sailed. 

There were three separate alarms of submarines 



EASTWARD HO! 145 

the first day out. At every port we touched there 
were Venizelist demonstrations by the five hundred 
or more volunteers who sailed with us. At Volo 
feeling between our fellow-passengers and the 
townspeople ran high and shouts of "Zito, Venize- 
los" by those on board and the yells of opprobrium 
from the shore were deafening. 

On deck the people were packed like sardines 
both day and night because few of the men took 
berths owing to the warm weather. My canvas 
deck-chair recked with garlic after the first night, 
so I knew that some would-be warrior had slept in 
it. Miss Simmonds and I had been lucky enough 
to get a tiny cabin to ourselves, — so tiny that we 
had to dress in our bunks much as one does in a 
sleeping car. The food was very good and the 
boat scrupulously clean, which was explained by 
the fact that the owners are Scotch. These boats, 
and those of the Italian line by which I returned, 
were very enjoyable exceptions to the usual run 
of boats out there. The Greek vessels are simply 
abominable in every detail, of food, service and 
accommodation. 



146 A NATIO?^ AT BAY 

Miss Simmonds (or "Emmy Lou" as she was 
called by her intimates), Mr. Herbert Corey, the 
war correspondent, and Mr. Petchar, a Serbian 
Government official who had been charged to look 
•after me by Mr. Balougditch, Serbian Minister to 
Greece, and I formed the party of four which gen- 
erally managed to occupy the whole platform, and 
here we argued and gossiped and settled the 
Affairs of Nations to our heart's content. 

Approaching Salonika, we had to wait some 
time for the examining officials to come on board 
and were much interested in watching life on a 
cruiser Avhich lay close by. It was near sunset 
and the fishing boats were coming in. They were 
a lovely sight with their patched sails shining like 
gold in the orange glow from the West and their 
hulls painted rosy pink, vivid green or deep ma- 
roon. Before us lay the curving line of buoys 
marking the guarded entrance to the harbor, and, 
rising across the bay, Eternal Olympus watching 
over all. 

At the last moment we were allowed to enter — 
the entrance is closed at sunset — and I saw a 




Emily Louisa Simmons 




pa 




EASTWARD HO! 147 

different harbor from the one of a year earlier. 
It was now filled with war vessels, great battle- 
ships, cruisers, destroyers; tiny launches darted 
in and out ; bugle calls floated over the water and 
the circling aeroplanes came slowly down the sky. 
A huge hydro-aeroplane swooped down to the 
surface of the bay like a monstrous dragon-fly, 
while, stately and beautiful in their pure wliite 
paint with the green band around their hulls and 
the great red cross painted on each side, lay the 
splendid ships, with their loads of sick and 
wounded men — the Hospital Ships. Two or three 
of these cleared daily for Malta, or France, or 
England, so great was the burden of sickness and 
wounds laid upon the "Armies of the Orient." 
Some of these vessels were attacked by submarines 
and, as we know, in several instances the Hun sat- 
isfied his blood-lust with the lives of these broken 
and suffering men and the nurses and doctors who 
tended them. 



CHAPTER Xy 

Salonika 

The harbor of Salonika when I arrived from 
Athens was crowded with AlHed troops and all 
the paraphernalia of war. 

A new Custom House and large, clean ware- 
houses had been built since my last visit and ships 
were unloading stores, provisions, munitions, guns, 
ambulances, troops, hospital units and kicking 
mules in a seemingly inextricable jam. Mountains 
of baled hay were neatly stacked near the shore- 
end of the docks and bags of oats were piled up 
beside them. Lumber and mysterious cases filled 
another enormous space while winding in and out 
among the press came columns of troops looking 
fit for any work — or play ! 

The whole town was aflutter with the Allied 
flags now settling slowly down as night fell. My 
old room at the Oljmpos Palace was ready and 

148 



SALONIKA 149 

friends came to call as a preceding boat had 
brought word that I hoped to come. 

The town was clamorous with troops of a dozen 
nationalities and every shade of color — English, 
French, Russians, Italians, Serbians, Annamese, 
Senegalese, Congolese, and American war corre- 
spondents bravely clad in tweed or khaki. There 
were nurses in white and blue and gray, doctors, 
surgeons and orderlies ; Greeks, Jews, Serbians 
and Macedonian refugees. Every known language 
seemed to be spoken and every tint of the rainbow 
worn. It was like a tapestry of color woven on 
a background of khaki and hung against the 
white walls of the old Thessalonian city. 

I have been told that "women who ask ques- 
tions" were particularly unwelcome to the author- 
ities, so I set about my business ver}' silently. 
The only questions I ever asked were absolutely 
concerned with m}' own work and I soon found 
plenty of that to occupy me. 

First there were the American and Serbian 
Consuls to be seen. Mr. Kehl, the American Con- 
sul, was far from cordial when I first saw him, 



150 A NATION AT BAY 

and after a short conversation I could not blame 
him. 

It appeared that various relief organizations 
in America, our own among them, had been send- 
ing goods out to Salonika "in care of the Ameri- 
can Consul" with a calm request that these large 
boxes and bales should be forwarded to Nish or 
Monastir, or be distributed among the camps 
there in Salonika, but omitting to send funds for 
the freight or portage. 

This, therefore, had to be paid out of the Con- 
sul's own pocket, as the associations had no repre- 
sentatives on the spot to whom he could apply, 
and naturally the Consul felt the imposition. 
It was, of course, merely lack of thought on, 
the part of those who had sent the goods, 
but when I promised to see that the matter 
should be corrected Mr. Kehl, who is only 
too glad to help in the good work, forgave us all 
and both he and Mrs. Kelil were very kind to me 
during my stay in Salonika. Then, accompanied 
by Mies Simmonds, I began the round of the hos- 
pitals and camps. 



SALON KA 151 

There were many pitiful sights and many more 
heart-breaking stories, but, on the whole, the poor 
refugees were comfortably housed in tents and 
wooden barracks and a school had been started 
for the children. Many of these had lost their 
parents or, in some cases, the parents were so 
dazed with the misery they had endured that the 
little ones were almost as badly off as if they were 
actually orphaned. Miss Simmonds was to take 
some of these children back to New Phaleron to 
be cared for by the Frothingham Institute. 

In the tent wards of the Scottish Women's Hos- 
pitals I saw many Serbian soldiers and among them 
three old friends, soldiers who had been in Madam 
Grouitch's hospital in Belgrade three years be- 
fore. They remembered me and called out feebly 
"Sestro, Vinchestare !" They had not forgotten 
that I had told them I had lived in Winchester 
and that the people there would send aid to the 
sick and suffering of Serbia. 

In several other hospitals the Serbians were be- 
ing cared for by the English and French and one 
day in the Place Liberte, I came face to face with 



152 A NATION AT BAY 

that spkndid woman, Dr. Rosalie Slaughter j\Ior- 
ton. She had been warmly welcomed at Salonika 
and was invited to work with the French surgeons 
among the Serbian wounded. 

My work in Salonika was to inspect the con- 
dition of the refugees in the camps and hospitals ; 
to find out just what form of effort on the part of 
my Committee in America would be most accept- 
able; to straighten out the questions of the for- 
warding of freight to different points by the kind- 
ness of the American Consuls and of funds for 
such forwarding, porterage, etc. ; these last not 
the least important items since we were sending 
large quantities of foodstuffs and clothing as well 
as medical supplies. This took time for every- 
bod}' was so busj' that I often had to go several 
times to get a ten-minute interview with some man 
who really had not ten seconds to spare. 

But I had not taken this long, dangerous and 
fearfully expensive trip to be balked by volumes of 
detail. So I inspected, investigated, questioned 
and worried everybody and everything that con- 
cerned Serbian Relief until my note-book was full 



SALONIKA 153 

and every vexed point had been covered and thor- 
oughly cleared up. 

Wlien I started back to face my Com- 
mittee, if there was anything that I did not 
know about refugees or hospitals for Serbians 
or general relief in refugee camps, that thing was 
not worth discussing! My work was done. 

Miss Simmonds, Mr. Corey and I used to desert 
the hotels and dine at the "Restaurant of the 
White Tower," where the food was excellent and 
the service passable. Here we would often invite 
one or two of the youthful British officers to join 
us for coffee and it was really touching to see how 
glad these lonely, home-sick boys were to talk with 
people of their "o^vn kind." The nurses and doc- 
tors are, as a rule, too busy to talk to them unless 
they are ill and, though there was a large amount 
of feminine society to be found in the restaurants 
and concert halls, it was of a particularly undesir- 
able type. On my return to England, I carried 
many messages to the parents of these young men 
and they were most appreciative of such "uncen- 



154 A NATION AT BAY 

sored" news as I could give. I do not mean that 
I carried forbidden letters but oral messages which, 
brought by one who had talked recently with their 
dear sons, were very precious. 



CHAPTER XVI 
Off to The Front 

After I had completed my Avork in Serbia and 
was preparing to depart for England and Amer- 
ica to continue the solicitation of funds for the 
Serbian cause, I was invited to call on Colonel 
Dr. Sondermayer, head of the Military Medical 
Service of the Serbian Army. In spite of his 
Teutonic sounding name the Colonel is a true and 
patriotic Serb, but he speaks only Serbian and 
German. During my visit at his office, he hap- 
pened to mention that he was going up to Ostrovo 
on the following day. 

At this I started forward and said, "I'd give 
a year of my life for such an opportunity." 

My work in Serbia prior to this time had been 
confined to hospital and administration work, 
both in the Bulgarian War and during the typhus 
epidemic at the beginning of the European War. 

155 



156 A NATION AT BAY 

And at this time I was about to return to the 
United States to continue the War Relief work 
on the lecture platform, which I had started the 
year before. 

I had been at the front before in former years, 
and I had seen the war in all its severity but 
things had now changed. Serbia was for the mo- 
ment not at bay. With the Allied aid she was 
actually driving the enemy back, back over the 
tortured country. Here was the chance to see 
Serbia regenerated, doggedly contesting every 
inch of the advance to her capital at Belgrade. 

So when Colonel Sondermayer said he would 
take me with him on his next trip, I was quite un- 
able to eat or sleep for excitement. It wasn't mor- 
bid curiosity. Heaven knows I had seen enough 
that was morbid in the three previous years. I 
wanted to see the Allied soldiers winning — driving 
back the enemy — victorious. 

It was not until five days later, however, that 

Colonel Sondermayer dashed into the hotel with 

; the demand "Can you be ready in half an hour?" 

\ "Of course," I replied. In ten minutes Miss 



OFF TO THE FRONT 157 

Simmonds had lent me a soldier's cap and other 
\ military paraphernalia. A Red Cross brassard 
was pinned on my arm and with a tooth brush, 
soap and not much else in a knitting bag, I was 
ready to go to the Front. 

This was the inauspicious and particularly un- 
impressive way in which I started on my career 
as a soldier. 

The town was jammed with people, as Mr. 
Venizclos was to arrive that day. The streets 
and houses were decorated with flags and wreaths 
of flowers; brilHant draperies flaunted from the 
windows and all wheel-traffic in the main streets 
was halted. We crept out of town through the 
narrowest back streets one ever imagined. Every 
soul in Macedonia seemed to be coming into town 
and it is little exaggeration to say that we were 
the only ones going out. 

Our rattling Ford seemed to eat up the miles 
as we flashed past the English and French camps 
and over the level plains, with now and then a 
stone hut or a ruined cottage, an occasional shep- 
herd or goat-herd with their flocks and now and 



158 A NATION AT BAY 

again a dead horse with a pack of wild dogs tear- 
ing and fighting over his thin carcass. There 
were little groups of gaunt unhappy-looking peas- 
ants squatting by the roadside or wearily plod- 
ding on toward the city. Some were Greeks, some 
were Macedonians, but many were obviously Ser- 
bians. 

Just at sunset we came to a long ridge of low 
hills and on their slopes, blending with the earth 
and rocks in such a way as to be nearly invisible 
from a little distance, were the tents of the Ser- 
bian Escadrille. Colonel Sondermayer's son was 
stationed here. We stopped just long enough to 
wish him good-luck and went on our way. 

Around the turn of the ridge we glimpsed a 
great tent hospital capable of holding a thousand 
men. Above it pegged, out on the slope and visible 
to aeroplanes for miles, was an enonnous white 
expanse of canvas with a huge red cross in the 
middle. This hospital has been bombed by enemy 
airmen several times and a number of patients and 
others have been killed. Kultur is practised on 
the Eastern front as well as in France! 




Colonel Doctor Sondermayer 



OFF TO THE FRONT 159 

The moon came up and we started climbing. 
Trees and bushes began to stand out sharply in 
the silvery light and the sound of water rushing 
down the rocky crevices by the roadside told us 
that we were approaching Vodena, ("The 
Waters") a hill-town of great antiquity. The 
wall of rock rose higher on our right and on the 
left we could now see the flash of a waterfall. 
Suddenly a turn in the road plunged us into a 
street — but such a street! 

It was narrow and paved with rough stones 
over wliich Ave bounced and swayed perilously. On 
either side were low, open shops like those in any 
Eastern bazaar, trees often growing up tlirough 
the overhanging eaves, the sides and counter hung 
and piled with bright-hued wares. For some 
reason there was a great quantity of vivid red 
cotton goods everywhere displayed, though I never 
saw any of it in use, — except as forming the great 
red crosses invariably pegged out on the ground 
near tent hospitals. Frequently in the middle of 
the street, which widened to allow traffic to pass. 



160 A NATION AT BAY 

were great trees and an occasional public fountain 
with a rude drinking-trough for the animals. 

Coming out into a broader street, we saw before 
us a dimly-lighted Avhite building much more pre- 
tentious than any we had seen since leaving 
Salonika and here we got out of the car (to the 
great relief of our stiffened limbs) and entered a 
large room with a few tables scattered about and 
a long counter, or bar, at one side. There were 
several Serbian officers and a few civilians drink- 
ing coffee and talking excitedly and they told us 
that an enemy airplane had been detected ap- 
proaching the town about an hour before, but it 
had veered away to the east without doing any 
damage. Everyone was wondering if it would 
return. A supper of coarse bread, rather "musty" 
fried eggs and beer was placed before us and we 
had, of course, the inevitable coffee, hot and 
syrupy as it is always served in the Balkans. 

Then a grimy man, who seemed to be the pro- 
prietor, showed me up to a small room containing 
two beds of particularly uninviting aspect, a 
washstand with a very small jug and basin, no 



OFF TO THE FRONT 161 

water, and a rickety chest of drawers with a mir- 
ror over it which distorted one's face into a most 
hideous grimace. On my demand for water, the 
man brought me a tin mug full (perhaps a 
quart), and a towel as thin as paper about eight- 
een inches square and with a very large hole in 
the middle of it! 

With these facilities having somewhat removed 
the stains of travel, I prepared to retire. 

At the earliest peep of day I was outside the 
hotel and glad to be there. Going around 
the corner where the Colonel's window was, 
I whistled and in a moment there was a 
head out of every window except his. Just at 
that minute he appeared around the corner and 
seeing me he clapped his hand to his head and 
exclaimed, "Heavens, what a night!" and I gath- 
ered that he, too, had liad his troubles. 

As I absolutely refused to enter the place again 
we got the car and went up to the railroad station 
where some Serbian military map-makers had a 
camp ; here we were most cordially received and had 
breakfast. Seated on soap-boxes we were served 



162 A NATION AT BAY 

with bread, Scotch short-bread, goat's cheese and 
copiously-sweetened tea served in glasses. 

It was all done so kindly and with such exquisite 
courtesy that the odd fare seemed to be the best 
one could possibly have and I shall long remember 
that hour spent at the camp at Vodena station 
while the sun cast a rosy glow on the distant 

mountains, and birds began to sing just as if 

I 
there was no such thing as sorrow or mortal 

agony, nor half our world bathed in blood. 



CHAPTER XVII 

*'The American Unit" 

After breakfast Colonel Sondermayer had to 
inspect a train-load of sick and wounded men who 
were on their way down to Salonika from the 
front. I went with him. Two Serbian ladies were 
distributing cigarettes and chocolate to the men 
who packed the train. The sick men sat on the 
seats with the worst cases lying across their knees 
or on the floor. 

They were a pitiful sight. Even the longed- 
for cigarettes could not bring a smile — just 
a languid half salute and a murmured "Fala." 
There was a constant stream of fever-stricken 
men being sent down at that time, though 
the Serbians stood the climate infinitely better 
than the French and English. 

Just before the sun rose we packed ourselves 
into the Ford and started for Ostrovo. Passing 

163 



164 A NATION AT BAY 

again through the town, we stopped at a tobacco 
shop and bought out the stock of cigarettes, as 
we had heard that the wounded near the Front 
had been three days without them. 

All the little shops were open and peasants were 
coming in with ox-wagons filled with straw and 
vegetables. An officer on horseback dashed up to 
the car, asked a question or two, saluted and gal- 
loped away. Sentries stepped forward, saw the 
uniform and red crosses, saluted and stepped 
back into their doorways. Rattling, bumping and 
skidding, we crept out of town and began our 
descent from Vodena. 

The dust was deep and came up in clouds while 
the air before us was dim with it. A French sol- 
dier, in the gray-blue uniform, and with his steel 
lielmet painted the same shade, sat panting by the 
roadside and ten yards further on we passed two 
more. Then rounding a rocky corner we came 
upon the rear guard of a column of French and 
Senegalese troops on their way to the Front. 

We had to enter at the rear of this column and 
work our way carefully through. It was exceed- 



THE AMERICAN UNIT 165 

ingly dangerous, both for us and for the soldiers, 
since the dust made it impossible to see anything 
more than ten feet ahead. We would crawl through 
the masses of men and dash past a huge "camion," 
only to pull up with a jerk to avoid an officer on 
a sweating, plunging horse, or a mule laden with 
bulging mysterious burdens closely covered with 
canvas and roped to the high pack-saddle. 

The Colonel was nearly strangled by the dust. 
He kept his handkerchief over mouth and nose, 
only removing it to shout to the men to make way. 
lAs he knew they would not understand Serbian 
fhe fell into the common error of thinking that his 
only foreign language would be more intelligible 
so used German! 

Of course, the French soldiers, seeing our uni- 
forms and brassards, and the red cross on the 
car, knew that we were all right, but the big 
Senegalese, hearing the "hated language," brought 
their rifles forward with a threatening ges- 
ture which made it necessary for me hastily to 
lean out and, in my very best French, beg them 
to please make way for "M. le Docteur Serb." 



166 A NATION AT BAY 

These Senegalese were fine fellows and in their 
horizon-blue French uniform, with the "soup 
basin" steel helmet, were very formidable in ap- 
pearance. They were a cheerful lot, jok- 
ing and singing, in spite of the heat and dust 
which made their brown faces look like wet choco- 
late and their eyelashes and woolly hair resemble 
jute. 

Their white teeth and eyeballs gleaming, 
they roared and rollicked along. I saw one 
jet-black, bullet-headed youth sitting by the road- 
side addressing a merry ditty to his big, blistered 
black foot while two others, roaring with laughter, 
prepared to soap the inside of his boot. The 
Frenchmen appeared full of nervous energy, 
though they did not sing or laugh. Often they 
saluted our cross and once or twice they gave us a 
hearty cheer, crying "Vive la Serbia," as we 
passed. 

At last we gained the head of the column and 
here a fine-looking French officer rode beside us 
for a time, asking questions. Everybody seemed to 
have the question habit except me ! At last he left 



THE AIMERICAN UNIT 167 

us with many good wishes and compliments on 
both sides. The country was now very beautiful 
and fine military roads were in process of being 
made. We often turned off on to the level turf to 
avoid a long stretch of newly-dumped road i la- 
terial, or places where the road bed had been ex- 
cavated in preparation for it. 

On our left were the long slopes of rolling hills 
and on the right a calm river with willows over- 
hanging the water whence occasionally a few wild 
ducks, or a big blue heron would rise and fly away 
as we dashed by. If I often refer to our mode 
of progress as "dashing" it is because that ex- 
actly describes it. We would "dash" along at a 
good speed, hit a rock or a big hole, slow down a 
minute to make sure that our engine was still in 
its place, then "dash" on until we struck another 
obstacle ! 

After a couple of hours' ride, we halted before 
a gap in the low hills, which now lay on our right, 
and between them I saw a lovely sight. Imagine 
a group of white tents, with neat walks bordered 
by stones running before and between them, and 



168 A NATION AT BAY 

t 
in a large open space great trees spreading their 

branches over an altar before another, much larger 

tent; among them busy women in gray, or 

white, or khaki. Small ambulances stood in front 

of i'. white tent in the immediate foreground and 

nearby gossiped a little group of men who, I 

found, were convalescent Serbian soldiers acting 

as stretcher-bearers. 

This was the American Unit of the Scottish 

Women's Hospitals which had been established 

in Corsica with money raised by Miss Burke 

and m3'self in America in the spring. It had 

been removed from Corsica and set up at Ostrovo 

when the Serbian troops pushed northward and 

into their own country again. 

s The doctors, surgeons, nurses and ambulance 

I drivers were all women and these latter were often 

i young girls who had been brought up in the 

; utmost luxury. But here they were, in khaki skirt, 

4 flannel shirt, heavy boots and with hair "bobbed" 

; to save the trouble of dressing it, driving their 

cars up to the dressing station or to the railway, 

in sun, wind, or rain, by day or night, hopping 



THE AJVIERICAN UNIT 169 

I down to do their own repairs or to "doctor" a 

I balky engine. And all these devoted women had 

only one word of complaint — that they were not 

allowed to establish themselves nearer the firing 

line. 

Their head was Dr. Bennett, a most efficient and 
capable person, a strict disciplinarian and pos- 
sessing a particularly "British" personality. She 
came, I believe, from New Zealand, and the con- 
duct of her hospital proved the highly executive 
ability of a voting woman! If American women 
only prove themselves as able in this war as the 
British women have done, the American men will 
have to look to their laurels at the polls or all the 
offices will soon be held by the newly-made "citi- 
zens." 

I was shown through the immaculate wards of 
the hospital and distributed the cigarettes which 
we had bought at Vodcna. It was touching to see 
how eagerly the men watched our approach. In 
many cases it was necessary for me to put the 
cigarette into the wounded man's mouth and 
light it for him. Then a box would be left be- 



170 A NATION AT BAY 

tween each two men to be shared by them. As 

we looked back from the door of each tent a 

j feeble cheer of "Givela Amerika" followed us. At 

\ the entrance of one tent lay a dying man who, 

iwhen he saw my basket, gasped, "Sestro, cigar- 

l ette." I put one in his mouth, lighted it ; he drew 

I a deep breath and died the happier because he 

) 

]had tobacco. 

In another ward lay a young man not of the 

Serbian type. As I paused to put the cigarette 

into his mouth the nurse said, "He is a Bulgarian 

officer who was taken prisoner last night." The 

man, hearing the word, "Bulgarian," shrank from 

me and a look of defiance came into his eyes. But 

to any woman who has nursed wounded men, any 

injured man is only a poor boy, so I laid my hand 

on his forehead and smoothed back his hair. The 

tears came into his eyes and rolled down his pale 

cheeks. Then with his left hand ho raised the 

coverlet and showed me the stump of his right 

arm. The nurse said that his right leg, too, was 

so mangled that they did not know whether they 

could save it. 




Major Dot-tor C;elil)ert at Salonika and Surgeons of Scottish 
Woman's IIosj)ital 



THE AMERICAN UNIT 171 

Later in the day, the Prince-Regent, Alexan- 
der, made a tour of inspection through the hos- 
pital and when he came to this bed he asked the 
man if he was well treated there : 

"Yes, Prince," said the Bulgar. 

"Did you think 3'ou would receive kindness at 
our hands?" asked Prince Alexander: 

"No, Prince," was the reply. 

"Why not?" No answer. 

*'Is it because you treat our wounded and pris- 
oners so cruelly?" demanded the Prince. The 
man's face turned slowly crimson as he replied 
in a low voice, "Yes, Prince." 

A Mass was held under the trees for the souls 
of the men who had died in that hospital. 
Prince Alexander, Prince George, Admiral Trou- 
bridge and a number of other distinguished offi- 
cers, Serbian, French and English were present. 
The medical staff of the hospital stood facing the 
Royal party, at right angles to the nurses and 
visitors. The tents made a background for the 
altar and the gorgeously vestmented priest, and a 
convalescent Serbian soldier served as acolyte. 



172 A NATION AT BAY 

It was an unforgettable scene, this little nook 
between the hills only visible from the road directly 
before it or from the sky overhead, in which lay 
pain and sacrifice, death and life, fearless men and 
devoted women. Over us the red cross and the 
blue sky, in the soft air the smell of incense and 
solemn murmured words of prayer. 

It was the first time Prince Alexander had 
visited this hospital and a luncheon had been pre- 
pared. The mess tent was decorated with flags in 
his honor and long white tables were placed along 
the sides. The Prince-Regent sat at the middle 
one with Dr. Bennett on his right and myself on 
his left. Beyond Dr. Bennett was Prince George 
and at my left sat Admiral Troubridge, a hand- 
some white-haired Englishman who had distin- 
guished himself by suddenly appearing by some 
m^'sterious route, on the Danube early in the 
war with a British gun boat, and who is now 
attached to Prince Alexander's Stajff. Opposite 
was General Vassitch, Chief of Staff and Colonel 
Dr. Sondermayer. 

The Prince was most interested in hearing of 



THE AMERICAN UNIT 173 

my work in America and asked many questions as 
to America's attitude toward the war and espec- 
ially toward Serbia. He urged me to tell my 
friends in America how deeply he appreciated 
what America had done, and was doing, for his 
suffering people and said he wished to see 
me in Salonika before I returned home that we 
might have a further talk. 

"But, Madame, you must have seen many hos- 
pitals," he added. "If you want to see real war 
and conditions out here, why do you not go up 
nearer to the front?" 

"Your Highness, I would like to go as far as 
possible," I replied. He spoke across the table to 
General Vassitch, who saluted, then turned to me. 

"How far do you want to go?" he asked. 

"Just as far as you will allow me," was my 
quick answer. They all laughed and Colonel 
Sondermayer got his instructions, which were to 
take me up to Old Vrbeni, the headquarters of 
Voivode Mishitch, Commander-in-Chief of the 
Serbian Army. 

So my wildest hopes were realized. I was to see 
the battle front! 



CHAPTER XVIII 

Approaching the Battle Line 

At this time the Serbians, French and English 
had succeeded in driving the enemy back as far 
as a place called Brod on a very recent offensive. 
Here both sides had "dug in." The Serbian 

i lines were just outside Brod, while the enemy lines 

I ran through the streets of this Serbian town. 

I Thither we directed our course the day following 

^ my official permission. 

The afternoon of my last day at the hospital 
^as spent in climbing the hills around the 
liospital whence we could get glimpses of the 
town of Ostrovo and of the road leading 
a.way to the Front. Occasionally an ambulance 
would crawl out of the far hills and come down 
the winding road to the hospital. Now and 
again an aeroplane would float into view and 
circle about, reflected in the glassy mirror of the 
174 



APPROACHING THE BATTLE LINE 175 

Lake of Ostrovo — and then suddenly dart away 
in the direction of Fiorina. 

That evening Dr. Bennett, Colonel Sonder- 
mayer and I dined with General Vassitch in an 
upper room of a stone house in the ruined and 
almost deserted village nearby. The entrance 
was through a gap in a rough wall, then through a 
cobbled courtyard which had once evidently been a 
cow-byre, and up a flight of dangerously uneven 
stone steps. The room was roughly plastered 
but dazzlingly bright with fresh whitewash and 
around the rude table, which stretched from end 
to end of the place, were a most splendid lot of 
keen-eyed, bronzed, broad-shouldered Serbian oflS- 
cers. 

The General sat at the head of the table. He 
was studying English and improved his oppor- 

Itunity by practicing it on us. He was reading 
IDickens, he told us, and he was most enthusiastic 

/ over it. Nearly all these officers spoke either 
French or German and conversation was as gen- 

I eral as the long table would permit. Toasts were 

I drunk in ttie^light native wines, songs were sung 



176 A NATION AT BAY 

and old campaigns fought over. It was 
a most exhilarating evening and I at last left 
the hospitable gathering and went out into the 
brilliant October night feeling that "Life is full 
of a number of things" and that it was given to 
me to share most fully in it. 

I slept at the hospital that night, and having 
been assigned to the tent of an absent member of 
the Unit, I was soon in bed — but, alas, I could not 
sleep. 

A camp cot is a length of canvas on a 
frame, and if you know how to manage you can 
sleep on it with great comfort, but I did not have 
the necessary knowledge. There were plenty of 
warm covers that had been placed on the cot by 
kindly hands, but I felt nearly frozen. It was 
a very cold night and my coat and dress 
and a mackintosh which was in the tent were all 
piled on top of me by morning — and still I shiv- 
\ ered. No one had thought to tell me — and I did 
not discover until too late to profit by it — that 
one must put something warm under one in a camp 
bed, else there is nothing between one and the chilly 



APPROACHING THE BATTLE LINE 177 

air but a sheet and one thickness of cold, hard 
canvas. 

This was the second night of wakefulness, but 
dawn found me eager and ready for another long 
day of adventurous effort. After a hasty break- 
fast we bade the splendid women of the hospital 
good-by and started again toward the sound of 
the guns. 

Along the shores of the beautiful lake, with 
its tiny islands bathed in the rosy light of 
just-bef ore-sunrise, through a valley of deep clog- 
ging sand and then a long ascent into the rocky 
hills over which our gallant Ford struggled and 
coughed and rattled and tugged. Sometimes we 
would have to wait, turned sidewise on some 
almost precipitous slope while the engine gathered 
itself together for some supreme effort to get us 
to the top. Once there, we slid and bounded and 
almost tumbled down over big stones and holes, 
only to begin another toilsome climb worse than 
the last. 

We overtook and passed the French troops of 
our yesterday's meeting, but now they were seated 



178 A NATION AT BAY 

by the roadside, having their morning meal, and 
they waved their steel helmets and cheered as we 
joggled by. 

At the edge of a level plain the road 
branched away to the left to the French base at 
Fiorina, but we kept to the right until the road 
curved into a little ruined village — Old Vrbeni. 
From the moment we took the road at the fork 
the flat country had shown signs of the heavy 
fighting which had so recently taken place over all 
this territory. 

Everywhere were rolls of cruel barbed-wire, 
neatly stacked shell cases and the baskets 
in which they are handled, broken rifles, 
scraps of metal and all the various debris of 
battle. The earth looked like rudely plowed land, 
so pitted and torn with shell holes was it, and 
everywhere were the rude earthworks which had 
been thrown up by Serb and Bulgar. Sometimes 
these were a long line of mud embankments behind 
which many men could shelter ; but more often the 
earth was scooped out in a tiny nest like a hare's 
'"form." Some of these faced North and some 



APPROACHING THE BATTLE LINE 179 

South. There were many into which the earth 
had been roughly shoveled back and we knew that 
these held Bulgarian dead. 

The Serbians were buried in plots of ground 
carefully marked off by rows of field stones; 
over the graves were small wooden crosses, new 
and shining — yellow like gold. When we passed 
one of these, my companions crossed themselves 
and I think we all offered up a silent prayer for 
brave men living who are fighting for all that is 
true and just on earth, for liberty and for peace; 
and for brave men dead, who had fallen for these 
glorious ideals. 

Our car was turned through a gap in the hedge 
and we rolled into a level field. Before us we saw 
a tent into which stretchers holding motionless 
forms were being carried. This was the dress- 
ing station nearest to the Serbian line. Within 
the tent soldiers with their wounds dressed 
lay upon the bare ground, at best with only a 
handful of straw under them and still in their 
ragged and soiled uniforms. 

There were no ambulances up there and the 



180 A NATION AT BAY 

wounded were brought in from the battlefield on 
stretchers carried by two men. We saw also a 
curious contrivance of two large wheels with a sort 
of stretcher hung from the axles. This could be 
managed by one man, though as it jolted over 
the stony ground the wounded man would groan 
in agony. Every time a man would cry out 
Colonel Sondermayer Avould flinch and his eyes 
grow dark with pain. When he spoke to or ex- 
amined men in the tents he was like a tender father. 
The soldiers adored him. 

After half an hour we went on to an inn on the 
other side of the village, and here I was presented 
to the Commander-in-Chief of the Serbian Army, 
Voivode Mishitch. Not tall, rather lightly built, 
this wonderful soldier does not impress a stranger 
with a sense of power until one meets the full, 
direct look of his eyes. Then one sees that here 
is a man. Calm, impersonal, his look bores into 
one's inmost being, and I should not care to see 
him angry — with me at any rate. 

He was much interested in hearing of my work 
and asked if I wanted to go yet nearer to the 




^^^ir;^ 




T %i 11 Ml 

■ft 7^ 




APPROACHING THE BATTLE LINE 181 

battle line. To my emphatic affirmative he said, 
*'We will see what can be done," and after we had 
had coifee. Major Todorovitch, his aide-de-camp, 
was sent for, given his instructions, and we bade 
the Voivode "au revoir," climbed into our faithful 
car and started again toward the roaring guns. 

Just outside the village stood a group of cap- 
tive Bulgarian officers, whose guards saluted us, 
grinning with triumph as we passed. About a 
mile further on we saw eight hundred or more 
Bulgarian prisoners in their earth-brown uni- 
forms standing in groups by the roadside or 
bathing their feet in the ditch. The Serbian 
guards were sharing their scanty store of tobacco 
with these men and, remembering the horrors of 
the Bulgarians' treatment of Serbian prisoners 
and wounded upon the battle-field, I could only 
wonder at their charity. 

In the almost demolished villages we saw rag- 
ged, haggard women winnowing corn, tossing it 
in the air with weary gestures, while near them sat 
the pale, emaciated children who had forgotten 
how to romp and play, — whose only thought now 



182 A NATION AT BAY 

seemed to be "when shall we get something to 
eat?" I picked up a little child and tried to 
fondle her, but she shrank away and began to wail 
in a feeble, frightened way and I had to turn her 
over to her mother for comfort. Further along 
the road a little girl lying on the low bank smiled 
at me, but her yellow skin drawn over the sharp 
bones told a tragic story. I stopped the car and 
went back to see if I could do anything, but when 
I spoke to her she did not answer. I took her in 
my arms but she was already dead. "What was 

{ the trouble ?" I asked. 

"She was my child. She had great hunger," the 

/mother replied simply. I gave the mother some 

' cakes of chocolate, which was all I had with me, 

I 

Iand some money, but the low voiced "Fala" of 
these wretched people was so hopeless that the 
tears ran down my face and I felt that my heart 
would break. 

Now the road was over rough undulations of 
ground, brown and sterile in appearance and with 
low mountains rising before me. Suddenly Major 
Todorovitch turning, cried, "Look !' — and far up 



APPROACHING THE BATTLE LINE 183 

in the blue sky I saw a flash of silver as the sun 
glinted on a wire or a wing. Behind it in the 
clear air grew suddenly three tiny, fleecy puffs of 
cloud — then three more — and three more. The 
plane must have been "burning the wind," as it 
was not visible to us for more than five minutes 
altogether, and we had seen it as soon as it 
lifted over the mountains before us. It was a 
Serbian machine and the lovely, soft cloudlets 
were the deadly, exploding shrapnel with which 
the enemy batteries were pursuing it. 

Down the hillside came a string of mules, each 
laden with a sort of pack-saddle holding two rude 
chair-shaped structures and in one of these on 
either side sat a wounded man. Other wounded 
men began to meet us, some with roughly bound- 
up heads and with streaks of dried blood on their 
faces ; some with arms in improvised slings and one 
boy who limped by with a bandage around one leg 
and blood dripping from it to the dust. 

Where two stones, rudely set in the earth, 
marked a boundary. Major Todorovitch saluted. 

"Madame," he said, "I have the honor to in- 



184 A NATION AT BAY 

form jou that you are the first woman of any 
nationality to enter reconquered Serbian terri- 
tory." All this time the thunder of guns had been 
growing louder and louder and at last we halted 
on a little plateau on which were a number of 
small tents and a line of fine cavalry chargers. 
Half a dozen officers, French and Serbian, came 
out to meet us and were surprised to see a woman 
— and above all, a foreign woman, — there. 



CHAPTER XIX 
The Battle 

When we came in sight of the front line 
trenches, the officers pointed out a hill on No- 
Man's-Land, situated between the opposing lines. 
This hill had been selected as the Serbian Head- 
quarters' Observation Post for the coming battle. 
I call it a hill, but it was really a small mountain, 
and the guns from both sides were considerably 
elevated to send their shells over it into the oppos- 
ing lines. 

I cannot say it was the safest place in the 
world to visit because a shell now and then does 
fall short. But this hill was "as far as possible," 
where I had wanted to go — and I went. 

I was actually "over the top," though not just 
as one who has not been there imagines it. But 
there I was between the enemy and our own front 
line trenches, with shot and shell screaming over 

185 



186 A NATION AT BAY 

my head, with men dying just below and behind 
me, and only chance and a four-foot-high rock 
between me and death. 

There were no barbed-wire entanglements 
erected before the trenches ; in fact, they had only 
been recently occupied and the line consolidated. 
Cavalry had taken part in the war on the French 
Front lately only in the Cambrai attack, but in 
the Eastern Front cavalry was quite commonly 
used in conjunction with the artillery at all times. 

At this time it was the intention of our party 
to go across a sheltered section of No-Man's-Land 
and up that steep hill on horses — but unfortu- 
nately I was not dressed for riding war-horses, so 
we all made the trip on foot. I don't know 
whether there is more glory in getting killed going 
**over the top" on horseback than on one's own 
feet — but we left the horses behind. 

The officers were obliged to toil up in riding 
boots with spurs and with the stiff, high collar 
of the trim Serbian uniform closely hooked up to 
their chins. Up the steep, rocky mountain side 
Major Todorovitch was most gallant, trying to 



THE BATTLE 187 

help me over the roughest places, but as the path 
was exceedingly narrow, I soon found it easier for 
both when we walked in single file. 

The sun poured down upon us and a sultry 
Indian Summer haze spread over the valley below 
us. In the tiny village of Bee far down on our 
left the enemy shells were falling and the thunder 
of hidden guns near us was almost deafening. 
Some one handed me a big wad of cottoH wool 
with which I stuffed my ears — just m time, for 
we suddenly rounded a corner and carae upon a 
group ©f great guns in full action. They were 
shooting, with a high trajector}', over the crest 
of the mountain and their shells were falling in 
the village of Brod, just opposite. 

We were not yet at our destination, however, 
and after another fifteen minutes of strenuous 
climbing on the twisted path, we scrambled over a 
final stretch of slippery turf and found ourselves 
surrounded by a group of officers who had arrived 
there shortly before we did, and were shel- 
tered under a great rock on the summit. Colonel 
Milovanovitch, commanding the Morava Division, 



188 A NATION AT BAY 

Colonel Vemitch, commanding the First Cavalry 
Regiment, and a number of others were just about 
to take lunch and I was at once given a place at 
the table. 

It was a curious experience. The thunder 
of the group of guns near us had now ceased, 
but the battle still raged on the plain below. 
After we were a little rested and refreshed, 
Colonel Milovanovitch said, "Would you like to 
see what is going on?" 

"Yes," I replied, "let me see all there is to be 
seen." 

I The Commander of the Serbians said, "Will 
you go further into Serbia than we have yet been, 
Madame?" And I, wondering, said "Yes." "Give 
me your hands," he said, "and lean out." So, 
i bending out over the valley from the brow of the 
\ precipice, I went, by the length of my own body, 
■ further into Beautiful Serbia than the soldiers had 
gone. 

From the beginning of the war we have been 
told that this war is not spectacular: that the 
soldiers sit in their trenches and see nothing but 



THE BATTLE 18» 

the barbed wire in "No-Man's-Land" and an oc- 
casional bursting shell, or have to dodge a 
shower of "whiz-bangs" from an invisible enemy 
when the opposing trenches are not too far away. 
Interspersed with this not-too-exciting mode of 
warfare are the terrific artillery duels, the rolling 
clouds of poison gas, the fiendish jets of liquid 
fire and then, mercifully, "over the top," and 
vengeance wreaked upon the enemy with the cold 
steel. Therefore, when we approached the line 
of battle, I did not in the least know which phase 
I would see — I hoped to see it all! 

Under shelter of the rock they led me to the 
brink of a precipice and here I was able to stand 
between two great out-cropping leaves of stone, 
while I gazed at a battlefield spread in relief 
below. Level with the face of the precipice, and 
of course far below my eyrie, were the Serbian 
trenches with the big guns some distance behind 
them and the village, of which mention already has 
been made, some distance away on their left. 

Every now and then a Bulgarian shell would 
fall among the little red-tiled houses and a cloud 



190 A NATION AT BAY 

of dust and whirling leaves would rise, circle about 
and slowly settle. Once a riderless horse galloped 
out and then a stretcher was carried slowly away 
toward the dressing station — then another and 
another. From the mountains still further to the 
left, which run like a great spine from Fiorina 
to Monastir and sweep round beyond in a rocky 
curve, came the great shells from the French guns 
and the white and dun clouds of vapor from the 
explosions formed constantly drifting veils over 
the tortured valley. 

On our right the Czerna River emerged from 
the mountains and flowed gently away into the 
hills again, and just in the elbow of the stream — 
the famous Czerna Bend — lay the village of Brod. 
In it Bulgarians swarmed, while their artillery 
roared spitefully just behind a low, rounded hill 
near the town. With the binoculars I could make 
out the earth-brown figures of the soldiers and the 
line of a trench. Before us in the distance, like 
a cluster of pearls against the dark mountains, 
lay Monastir, nine miles and in the milling pro- 
gress of the Allies, five weeks away ! 



THE BATTLE 191 

The view from the Observation Post was more 
thrilling than anything I had anticipated. First 
of all there were few clouds of smoke to obscure 
our view and we were high enough above the bat- 
tlefield to see all of it at once. Even the Bul- 
garian trenches across the river lay open to our 
view, and with the glasses I could see their guns 
slide forward, smoke belching from their mouths, 
and then settle back, while a moment later the 
boom-m of the explosion would come dully to my 
ears. Then the shell would burst over, or near, 
the trenches below me and I would turn my eyes 
away from the welter of maimed and bloody forms 
below. 

Once I saw a group of men, perhaps eight of 

them, mashed to a gory pulp by three shells which 

fell close together in the Serbian line, and a man 

close by who had apparently been untouched, 

■ but suffered a temporary derangement due pos- 

■( sibly to tortured nerves, sprang out of the trench 

and, shaking his fists in the direction of the enemy, 

rushed blindly forward toward the river, into 

; which he plunged and was lost to view. 



192 A NATION AT BAY 

Still dazed and gasping, I heard Colonel Milo- 
vanovitch ask, "Would you like to give the signal 
■ for our guns to recommence firing?" and, shaking 
with emotion, I nodded assent. 

So, in the name of American Womanhood, I 
gave the signal which sent shells roaring over the 
valley to fall in the Bulgarian trenches. And the 
* men behind me shouted "Givcla Amerika !" 

I was shaking from head to foot with excite- 
iment and the lust of battle. Major Todorovitch 
spoke, — 

"Calm 3'ourself, Madame; they have not just 
got our range up here yet. When it grows too 
dangerous we will take 3'ou away." 

"Do you think I am afraid.?" I cried. "I never 
\i lived before !" 

•a 



CHAPTER XX 
How I Became a Soldiee 

They may not have had our range on that hill 
— that is, the snipers did not; but it doesn't take 
heavy artillery long to get the range of the top 
of a hill in No Man's Land. The shells were 
constantly coming closer — those shells which I 
had just seen blow to pieces dozens of our brave 
allies. Yet, I can truthfully say, I was not afraid. 

It has been said that "Fools rush in where 
angels fear to tread," Perhaps this was my case, 
but it was all too thrilling — a wonderful experi- 
ence — and I could not tear myself away. 

The Commander-in-Chief stepped up to me 
while the battle was at its height. 

"Haven't you had enough of it yet?" he asked. 

**No, Excellency," was my reply. 

"Well you should have been a soldier," he said. 
193 



194 A NATION AT BAY 

"Make me one," I promptly responded. The 
Colonel of the First Cavalry Regiment instantly 
put in his word. 

"I want her to be made a member of mj' regi- 
ment," said he. And so, with the shells screaming 
over our heads at the most exciting m.oment of 
my life on that famous battlefield of Brod, in 
I October, 1916, I was made a member of the First 
Cavalry Regiment of the Royal Serbian Army. 

I was no longer a woman helper. I was now a 
soldier, and, as I write this, — the only American 
woman soldier in this great war. 

After my return to America, a large parcel 
containing the peculiar cloth of the uniform of 
the Serbian officer arrived, with the beautiful 
enamel "Cocarde" which is worn on the cap of 
every Serbian oflEicer. No honor which Serbia 
could bestow upon me could make me so proud as 
the right to wear this uniform, which has been 
rendered glorious by those heroic men who so 
long and so bravely have fought, and continue to 
fight, against such fearful odds and whose gentle- 
ness and patience under suffering have won the 







•n ^ '2 
-age 



&H i^ 



^ 



^ o 






O 



O 



HOW I BECAME A SOLDIER 195 

affection and admiration of every person who has 
worked among them. 

I was allowed to remain in my rocky nook until 
night began to fall and then was told to return 
to the dressing station and wait. 

"For what?" I asked, and the Commander said 
that he believed that I had brought them luck and 
they would try to cross the Czerna that night. 

"You will let me know when you make the ad- 
vance," I begged. 

There was a certain grim humor in my 
companion's eye as he said, "You'll hear us." 
And then I had to go. Down the mountain and 
over the plains, passing stretchers on which lay 
shattered bodies and from which, often, bright 
blood trickled down into the dust. An unlucky 
stumble by a stretcher-bearer would cause a 
quickly stifled moan from pale lips, and occasion- 
ally a brown hand would be lifted to a bandaged 
head in salute as we passed. 

Arriving again at Old Vrbeni, the hospital staff 
greeted us cordially and gave a cheer when they 
were told where I had been. 



196 A NATION AT BAY 

"We hoped that you would be with us at 
luncheon and arranged to give you a real 
American dish but as you did not come we will 
have it prepared for 3'our dinner," said the Chief 
Surgeon. 

Now these brave men were living on the coarsest 
and scantiest of food and the country was denuded 
of everything, practically, so I wondered what 
they could have found for me. After a sketchy 
wash-up we sat down, with me at the head of the 
table were the higlicr officers, within the mess tent, 
and the younger ones at the other end, which ex- 
tended outside. Tlic lights were dim, flaring oil 
lamps and the tables were rough boards on trestles. 
There was a heavy hand-woven linen cloth at our 
end and clean paper spread over the places of 
the lesser officers at the other. We had two 
Frenchmen with us, one a great doctor and the 
other a 3"oung officer, just convalescent, who sat 
silent and brooding all through dinner. 

Such a dinner! In cur ears sounded the crash 
and roar of battle, and the moans of dying 
men. Sometimes a man in the hospital tent be- 



HOW I BECAME A SOLDIER 197 

hind us would break into awful, hopeless sobbing 
and this would be checked by the choking cough, 
or horrid rattle, which told its own story of a soul 
passing into Eternity. Around our dimly lit 
table were surgeons, kindly-eyed doctors, bronzed 
officers with gleaming orders on their breasts ; and 
I felt my high privilege to be sitting there with 
men who had given all, dared all, and were pre- 
pared to sufl'er all for their country and her 
honor. 

The "American dish" was served with much 
ceremony — a beautifully prepared platter of ham 
and eggs ! Can you imagine how I felt ? — to sit 
there and eat this savory food when the gallant 
gentlemen who entertained me for weeks past had 
tasted nothing better than coarse broad and 
stringy goat's-flesh ! My throat rebelled at every 
delicious morsel, but to refuse would have been not 
only to give pain but to offer a deadly insult to 
these proud men who hold nothing to be too good 
for their guests and no sacrifice too great for 
any who befriend them. 

After dinner the younger men played on guitars 



19S A NATION AT BAY 

and sang haunting melodies and stirring war- 
|songs. A peasant soldier who was brought in 
Iread three poems of his own composition. At 

/ease, and without a trace of embarrassment, he 

I took the seat placed for him near the least smoky 
lamp and in a clear, musical voice, he recited a 

; wonderful epic poem, which told how the Crown 
Prince Alexander, when stricken by illness on the 
awful march through the snow-filled passes of the 

> Albanian mountains, refused to leave his men in 
order to gain comfort and safety more quickly. 

"No," he replied to their entreaties, "I belong 
>to you and my place is here." 

The pride of the King in his noble son and the 
love of the suffering people for them both were 
eulogized. Next he read a stirring battle 
song and finished with an exquisite Song of 
Home, telling of the love of the soldier for his 
little white-walled dwelling with its fields of grain, 
its fruit trees, flocks and flowers; the courage of 
the chaste, deep-bosomed women and the laughing, 

(fiery-spirited children. When he had finished each 
ofiicer shook his hand and then he turned to me. 



HOW I BECAME A SOLDIER 199 

with a true poet's look in his blue eyes, and said, 
^"I kiss the lady's hand for our kind sister Amer- 
ica." He raised my hand to his lips and, saluting, 
went out to join the reserves who were on their 
.way to the trenches. 

Just as the singers began another plaintive 
melody, there came a sudden lull in the sound of 
the fighting. Then, sounding surprisingly near 
in the keen autumn night air, came an outburst 
of cheering when with a renewed thunder of the big 
guns doubling their fury, the cracking of machine 
guns and the occasional bursting crash of bombs, 
the Serbian heroes left their trenches, dashed 
across the stretch of open plain and crossed the 
Czema River for the first time in their advance 
to Monastir. They drove the Bulgarians out, 
captured or killed hundreds and occupied the vil- 
lage of Brod ; — while we, back there in the ruined 
village of Old Vrbeni, cheered and sang and prayed 
for those who fought and won and those who 
suffered and died in the moonlight on the soil of 
their loved Serbia. 

As the stretchers came in with their piteous 



200 A NATION AT BAY 

burdens they were greeted with triumphant songs 
of victory, and even men whose life blood was 
staining the shriveled grass at our feet, found 
strength to mutter "Givcla Serbia" before their 
eyes closed forever. My own soul was filled with 
an amazing sense of glory and my own country 
seemed more dear than ever before, — seeing what 
men could do for their native land, — and I sang 
I "America" in a broken and sadly unmusical voice, 
i but with all my heart in the words, while all those 

I blessed, blessed men took up the air and at the 

\ 

I end shouted again and again, "Givela, Givela, 

I Amerika." Whatever the years may bring to us, 

) never again can I feel that Life has cheated me, 

for in these moments I lived and the memory will 

I be mine forever. 

At last the doctor insisted that I must get some 

rest, so I was put into a tiny tent in which a 

great bunch of belated marigolds had been placed, 

but there was not room for the flowers and me, 

and so they had to be put under the bed until I 

•was in it, when I brought them out and propped 

them again against the canvas wall. When at 



HOW I BECAME A SOLDIER 201 

last sleep came, it was only in fitful snatches, for 
the sound of the fighting, mingled with the low 
murmurs of the wounded men in their wards near 
me, kept my mind full of the excitement and exul- 
tation which had marked the day. 

For the next five weeks there was continual 
fighting and gradually the Allied troops pushed 
the enemy back with fearful losses on both sides. 
Finally Monastir was recaptured and our troops 
entered the city amid the happy tears and rejoic- 
ing of the people. But the story of that advance, 
with its wake of blood, is not a pleasant thing to 
describe. It was war in all its horror, all its 
brutality, all its glory. Serbia's troops are only a 
little beyond Monastir today. The battle-lines 
are still drawn there. There is a dead-lock on 
the Eastern Front. 

Perhaps the Teutons will make another attempt 
to push us out of Serbia. The^"^ will not succeed. 
The Allied Armies must hold that Eastern gate 
against all odds. 

I might have gone back this Spring, but General 
Rashitch, when he was here with the Serbian Mis- 



202 A NATION AT BAY 

sion in January, said to me, "My Sergeant, your 
duty to Serbia is here, pleading her Cause. You 
can do so much good here that I assign you to 
this work until further orders." 



CHAPTER XXI 

The Return 

When I started back again to America from 
the battle front to help the Serbian cause it was 
with mixed feelings since every atom of m}' being 
was crying out to remain with the Serbian troops. 
I met Colonel Sondermayer again at the little 
town of Old Vrbeni, whence I had previously 
started for the scene of battle. 

We planned to get under way on our return to 
Salonika at dawn. After my night's sleep 
in the hospital tent, as the first glimmer of day- 
break appeared, I was ready. 

And here arose a difficult}'. The orderly who 
the night before had laced the flaps of the tent — 
first the inner and then the outer one — had done 
it so securely that I was unable to get at the knots 
which were, of course, on the outside and there 
was nothing in the tent with which I could cut the 

203 



204 A NATION AT BAY 

cords. Outside Colonel Sondermayer stamped up 
and down, growling about women being always 
late, and there was I, ready even to my gloveci, 
trying to make him hear so that he might let mo 
out ! He was making so much noise himself that 
it was some time before my despairing cries could 
be heard, but at last he did hear and I was soon 
free. 

We had a hasty cup of coffee and a slice of 
toasted bread and started back to Ostrovo. 
Along the road we met troops marching up to 
their bases, but were so fortunate as not to get 
caught in another column. There were little 
groups of ragged refugees straggling up the road 
and on one rocky stretch of break-neck descent 
we passed a recklessly bounding car from which 
the long arm of Prince George waved us enthusi- 
astic greeting. The car flashed past us with such 
speed that all we could hear of his vociferous 
shouts was, "A la bonheur," and he was gone. An 
American nurse in Salonika told me that the nick- 
name of His Highness' chauffeur was "The Light- 
ning Conductor," because of his invariably 



THE RETURN 205 

speedy progress. Remembering his uproarious 
passing, I suggested that his car might be called 
"The Stormy Petrol." 

Again the beautiful Lake of Ostrovo and the 
ruined stone village where we had dined — how long 
ago was it ? Counting by days only two ; count- 
ing by emotions, experiences, feelings, at least a 
year ! We drew up at the gap in the hills before 
the Scottish Women's Hospital and soon were 
talking "fourteen to the dozen" to Dr. Bennett, 
': who left her work to greet us. Our time was so 
short and we had so much to discuss that it was 
only after I was again in the car and Joko had 
cranked up that I remembered the most personal 
thing of all and shouted above the din of the car, 
"I was the very first woman of any nationality 
to enter re-conquered Serbian territory." She 
waved a friendly hand and called "Bravo" as we 
turned into the road and began our journey to 
Salonika. 



Through the long, lovely valleys again, lunch- 
eon of bread and goat's-cheese on a rock by the 
smooth flowing river which furnished our only 



206 A NATION AT BAY 

drink, then around the foot of the hill on which 
stood Vodena of uneasy memories. Again, we 
pulled up before the low stone huts and dun- 
colored tents of the Serbian Escadrille. Tadoya, 
Colonel Sondermayer's son, came to escort us to 
the mess tent. 

, Oh, the heat under that canvas top, "camou- 

I 

i flaged" though it was with green boughs ! And 

I the young enthusiasm of the youthful aviators 

I for their perilous work! They laughed and 

I sang and joked and called me "Mon colleague" 

I until, middle-aged as I am, I began to feel 

) that perhaps the thin red wine which we were 

i 

I drinking might actually be "the Elixir of Life"; 
and when I found myself singing "Tit Willow" 
for them, I just knew it ! After this cheerful 
interlude we started again toward Salonika and 
at sunset our Ford rolled along the quay beside 
a Russian regiment which had just disembarked. 
Mr. Venizelos had arrived, amid great rejoicing, 
and was comfortably installed in a fine villa about 
two miles from the center of the town, where he 
was, I suppose, the very busiest man in Salonika. 



THE RETURN 207 

With him had come Captain George Melas, an old 
friend of mine with whom Miss Simmonds and I 
dined that evening. A formal dinner was being 
given to Mr. Venizelos in the "Concert Room" of 
the White Tower restaurant and the lobbies were 
full of Cretan guards, in their funny trousers and 
"pill-box" caps ; eagle-eyed detectives and friends 
of the great man were in attendance too. 

After dinner Captain Melas asked if I would 
like to see Mr. Venizelos, and I eagerly assented. 
So, with all the frock-coated and uniformed 
guards bowing and saluting at sight of our escort, 
we passed into the room behind a line of palms and 
up a tiny staircase to the boxes. But, alas, the 
only unlocked door was that of the box directly 
over the places of honor and we could only see 
most of the, to us, uninteresting three or four 
hundred other men. Some of them jauntily 
raised their glasses when they saw us appear, but 
this failed to amuse us and we descended to our 
little alley behind the palms on our way out. Just 
as we got half-way to the door, a gentleman with 
glasses and a short white beard turned from the 



208 A NATION AT BAY 

table and looked directly at me. In an instant I 
recognized Mr. Venizelos, but then, a trifle panic- 
stricken at being caught staring, I scuttled out. 

At eight o'clock the next morning Captain 
Melas came and told me that Mr. Venizelos would 
be pleased to see me at nine. In a flurry of 
anxiety as to whether he would give the order of 
"Off with her head," I set out with Miss Sim- 
monds. It was a lovely autumn morning and the 
white villa, set in its garden of palms and 
late flowers, looked very beautiful but hardly 
peaceful, as the Cretan guards, armed to the 
teeth, stood at the gate and among the trees 
while detectives prowled in the streets and around 
all the corners. We went up the broad marble 
steps and in the hall found groups of earnest and 
solemn personages waiting their turn with the 
distinguished man. Everybody made way respect- 
fully for Captain Melas and we were received by 
General d'Anglis and the Greek naval hero, 
Admiral Conduriotos. 

After a few minutes the people who were with 
Mr. Venizelos came out and we were at once 





Eleutlicrios Vciiizclos, Greek rrcinier 




Voclen.'i 



THE RETURN 209 

shown into the room. This room was open to 
observation from the hall, one side being com- 
pletely glazed, so fearful were his friends that he 
might be attacked and injured. He greeted us 
most cordiallj. 

"Madame, I find Ingleesh veery deeficult — if 
you permit me French?" was his apology at meet- 
ing. Then for over an hour this, the busiest man 
in Greece at that time, talked with me of liis plans 
and aspirations ! He spoke of the King and said 
he hoped Constantine would see his way to come 
out openly on the side of the Allies "even now,'* 
and that in any case his own duty was clear. He 
gave messages for the Greeks in America, saying 
that it was their duty to return and fight with 
their Balkan Ally. 

"We Greeks and the Serbians are natural 
friends and we must stand together," he 
said. "Tell them that they must help now for 
the honor of Greece and for her safety." In 
America I have given this message repeatedly in 
my lectures but have had no means of knowing if 
these noble words have borne fruit. 



210 A NATION AT BAY 

Mr. Yenizelos is a.man of middle height, neither 
stout nor thin. His fine forehead is surmounted 
by nearly snow-white hair and a well-kept mus- 
tache and short beard shade his always smiling 
mouth and firm chin, but it is the clear blue eyes 
with their direct and honest gaze which hold one's 
attention from the first moment one meets him. 
One feels that here is a man, clean, sincere and 
strong. Before we parted he smilingly said, with 
a twinkle in his eye, "But, Madame, I am sure 
that I have seen you before." 
/ **Yes, Excellency," was my reply. "Miss Sim- 
I monds and I were the only ladies present at your 
[ banquet last night and when yoxi turned your 
head I lost mine." He seemed greatly amused. 
Then he signed two photographs which he gave 
to Miss Simmonds and myself and, despite the 
evident agitation of his friends and body-guards, 
came out to the top of the steps with us to say 
good-by. It was dangerous, too, for any mis- 
creant waiting an opportunity could have shot 
him from the street as he stood there calmly 
talking. 



THE RETURN 211 

"How warm the beautiful sunshine is today," 
he remarked. 

"Excellency," I answered, "may you stand 
always in the sunshine." 

"Ah, Madame," he said, "who can tell. But, 
sun or shadow, I know my way." 

We went away feeling that we had seen history 
in the making — as indeed we had, and I do believe 
that while the affairs of Greece arc in the hands 
of this splendid patriot, she will go far toward 
regaining some measure of her old glory. 

The next day my ship was due to sail, so I went 
to tlie Provost Marshal to get permission to leave 
as this would save the endless round of the Allied 
Consulates, which is usually required. The Pro- 
vost Marshal proved to be an old acquaint- 
ance whom I had not seen for many years, so we 
\ had a good talk. When I rose to go, he said, 
"Do you know we all know you here as the 
*Woman Who Asks No Question and Attends to 
Her Own Business.' " I laughed, gathered up my 
documents and went away feeling that my extreme 
self-restraint had not been in vain! 



212 A NATION AT BAY 

A visit to Mrs. Kehl that afternoon, a farewell 
dinner at the White Tower and, later in the even- 
ing. Colonel Joannu, famous Greek soldier and 
Venizelist supporter, came in and, when several 
Serbian officers joined us, we had an international 
"conversazione" in which the affairs of many na- 
tions were discussed and settled to our own com- 
plete satisfaction. 

On the day set for my departure, the French 
officers and doctors at "Aviation" again in- 
vited me to luncli and Colonel Sondermayer 
arranged to call for me just in time for the 
boat. When he came he was so flurried that I 
was sure I had missed it, but when we turned off 
the main road into the Grande Quarticr Serbe 
I said, "Well, if we ramble all over town of course 
we will be late." The Colonel just sputtered and 
exclaimed fiercely, "Don't j^ou know that Prince 
Alexander has been waiting hours to see you.'"* 
It was the first I had heard of it, but naturally 
I was pleased with the prospect of seeing the 
Prince before leaving. 

We arrived at the "Palace," a great rambling 



THE RETURN 213 

villa in a garden with a tall fence and with pic- 
turesque Serbian guards at the gates and along 
the paths. An immaculate officer greeted us at 
the door and at the top of the marble staircase 
a frock-coated major-domo, bowing, met us. In 
a small irregularly shaped room, paneled in bro- 
cade and filled with French furniture, we waited 
and in a few moments Prince Alexander came to 
us. He is of medium height, well-built and erect, 
with a warm olive complexion and handsome dark 
eyes behind powerful glasses, a direct earnest gaze 
and a resolute manner. He seems older than his 
actual years and will, we all believe, be a splendid 
Kinff when the time comes for him to take his 
place upon the throne of that Greater Serbia 
which the future will bring to stand as a strong 
sentinel in Eastern Europe. 

For an hour we talked of Serbia and what 
America has tried to do for her and of what the 
Serbian Relief Committees are trying to do. The 
Prince expressed his deep appreciation and said 
he had hoped the seeds and farming imple- 
ments might be sent into the country the moment 



214 A NATION AT BAY 

the war is over so that the people may plant and 
reap a good harvest. 

"And," he added, "when the people have gath- 
ered their first crops they will ask aid of no one." 
But we, who have seen, know how much there 
must be done in sanitary and other matters — 
though the people will not ask. 

"You wear two of our decorations, I see. I 
f want you to wear a tliird in token of our grati- 
I tudc for all your devotion to our cause," said 
the Prince, leaning toward me. He held toward 
me the little blue and gold box which contains the 
coveted Order of St. Sava ! I was surprised and 

I' could only stammer, "Does Your Highness think 
I merit it?" 
; Then Prince Alexander pinned the Order on 
I my coat saying, "I know no better friend of 
\ Serbia than Ruth Farnam." After a few 
moments, he said, "You will return soon to 
help us in Monastir, will you not, Madame?" I 
explained that my services would probably be 
much more valuable in raising funds in America 



THE RETURN 215 

which would enable the trained workers to do their 
work out there. 

"But, I will come back to go with the Army 
into Belgrade!" I promised, and the Prince 
replied that he should hold that as a promise. 
We shook hands, and I fled for the steamer. 

The steamer was waiting for me and there was 
a brilliant gathering of officers and officials on 
board. Some were former office holders, under 
King Constantine, now displaced by the Pro- 
visional Government of Mr. Venizelos ; and several 
were people who had come to see me off. There 
was a great deal of congratulation over my new 
Order and many messages given for friends in 
Athens and Paris, London and New York, all of 
which I tried to store into a head which was 
fairly whirling with excitement. 

Soon the whistle blew and our friends left us, 
remaining on the water in the little boats until 
our ship was well away from the anchorage, and 
even then their shouts came faintly over the water 
as we moved out past the war vessels; past the 
great white hospital ships and toward the barrier 



216 A NATION AT BAY 

of nets and mines guarding the mouth of the har- 
bor. Many of our passengers were happily on 
their way to France or England on leave, but I 
regretted every mile which took me away from the 
white city and the wonderful men and women who 
were striving there to win freedom and to soothe 
the wounds of a tortured world. 

If in these pages I have said little of the splen- 
did women-nurses, doctors and surgeons who were 
devotedly working in Salonika and nearer the 
Front, it is not because I did not see them and 
their superb accomplishment but because no words 
of mine could do justice to them all. 

There was our famous Dr. Rosalie Slaughter 
Morton, who chose to spend her hard earned holi- 
day out there helping to restore Serbian heroes 
to life and hope. She made many an American 
heart beat faster with pride in American woman- 
hood. Another hard working person was the 
Princess Demidov. There were Madame de Rel- 
nach-Foussemagnc, Dr. Honoria Keer, surgeon in 
the Scottish Women's Hospital, great little Dr. 
Alice Hutchinson, Mrs. Harley, the sister of 



THE RETURN 517 

General French, and who recently was killed by 
an exploding shell in Monastir ; Dr. Bennett, and 
a hundred more, every one of whose names will be 
written in letters of gold in the memories of men 
for their heroic service and splendid devotion. 

But of all these, we Americans must remember -^ 

with pride the name of Emily Louisa Simmonds, CAm,^ •^-^ 
an American Red Cross nurse, of British birth. i 

She was one of the most devoted of the noble and 
gallant band who suffered and toiled untiringly 
and ungrudgingly for Serbia. 

Arriving again at Athens, I found the city in a 
turmoil, with Allied troops — ^but mostly French 
marines — marching continually in the streets. 
There would be a sharp bugle-call and from every 
direction little Greek soldiers would run across 
the park before the hotel and line up under the 
trees. Officers with their clanking swords bang- 
ing on their horses' sides would gallop back and 
forth and one lived in momentary expectation of 
an international explosion. Many of the officers 
with whom I had talked during my last visit had 
gone to Salonika, and every boat clearing from 



218 A NATION AT BAY 

Piraeus took dozens of recruits. I remembered 

Mr. Vcnizelos' words to me, "We are the natural 

I friends of Serbia. Her sorrows concern us and 

I we must take our stand beside her now and 

5. always." 

There were still Greeks who were loyal to the 
Janus-faced King, but even they were complaining 
of conditions in the country. Princess Andrew 
sent for me and I went to the Palace. Before 
her marriage she was beautiful Princess Alice of 
Battenberg and her spouse was the brother of 
the King. 

She certainly was not pro-German but was en- 
tirelj^ pro-Greek, and since her sympathies were 
all with Constantine, one can only conclude that 
she did not in the least understand the true state 
of affairs. She was anxious to get me to work 
in America for the Queen's Refugee and Hospital 
funds. This I readily promised to do, if it would 
not clash with my work for Serbia, but was told 
later that these affairs were run in a rather hap- 
hazard way. Her Majesty not being quite as 
efficient as her German training would indicate. 



THE RETURN 219 

On my return to America I spoke to several peo- 
ple about giving such time as I could to this work 
but met with little response. 

My calls upon the Legations, American, 
French, English and Serbian, took up some time, 
but on the second day I left for Marseilles and, 
arriving in Paris early one morning, left the same 
\ day for Boulogne and London. The journey was 
,' long and extremely tedious, but as there was a 
convalescent French officer in our crowded com- 
partment who grew paler and paler and at last 
asked permission to lie on the floor (among our 
feet!), no one felt like complaining over his own 
little troubles. Two men and myself then stood 
in the corridor, in spite of the Frenchman's pro- 
testations, so he had room to rest in comparative 
I comfort. At the "town" station an Englishman 
met him, helped him carefully into a cab and they 
[ drove quickly off into the darkness. 

The Channel boat was packed with travelers 
and we made the trip in utter darkness, as subma- 
rines were prowling about. Occasionally we 
would see a white gleam in the distance which must 



220 A NATION AT BAY 

have been, we all believed, the "wash" of our 
guardian, an English destroyer, but the night 
passed without any untoward happening and just 
as the sun rose we landed on English shores. 

A few days later I set sail for America to con- 
tinue my work on the lecture platform and other- 
wise to help the Allied cause. 



THE END 



APPEAL OF THE SERBIAN WO^IEN TO 
ALL SOCIETIES OF WOMEN 



Appeal of the Serbian Women to all 
Societies of Women 

As representatives of the National League of 
Serbian Women, we some time ago addressed to 
all Societies of women in the Allied and neutral 
countries an appeal begging them to raise their 
voice against the attacks on the honor of Serbian 
women and young girls. 

We consider it our most sacred duty, as pa- 
triots as well as women, to draw once more the 
attention of all feminist societies to the frightful 
proceedings to which the Serbian women and 
young girls who have remained in Serbia are 
exposed. We base our appeal on the formal 
declarations of the Serbian Government, and also 
on extracts from articles which have appeared in 
the press on this subject, and we appeal to your 
sentiments in the hope that you will not remain 

2:23 



£24 APPEAL OF THE SERBIAN WOMEN 

indifferent to these shameful proceedings against 
the Serbian women and girls, in which Germans, 
Austro-Hungarians, Bulgarians and Turks are 
taking part. 

We denounce not only the facts which prove 
the systematic extermination of the Serbian male 
population, but also the dishonoring and dis- 
graceful acts to which the enemy occupants of 
Serbia have had recourse in delivering up young 
Serbian girls to the Turks to be shut up in the 
harems of Constantinople. 

Here is authentic testimony on the subject: 
M. Pachitch, the Serbian Prime Minister, de- 
clared in London that the Austro-Germans and 
Turks have deported eight thousand young Ser- 
bian girls, aged from 10 to 14 years, and have 
shut them up in the harems of Constantinople. — 

La Suisse, August 6th, 1917. 

****** 

Young girls of Serbia, this time the victims are 
not far-off Armenians, or Greek women of Asia, 
already accustomed to oriental seclusion, brought 
up under the whip of the Turk, trembling slaves 



APPEAL OF THE SERBIAN WOMEN 225 

from their infancy. These little girls of Bel- 
grad, I saw them in their families before the war. 
They were Europeans, dressed like you, refined 
like you, who read books from Paris, and were 
preparing themselves perhaps to finish their edu- 
cation in a boarding-school in France or in Eng- 
land. 

But the "brave German Army" came, charged 
with "kultur" and chanting the pious hymn of 
Luther. It killed or drove out the men of Serbia 
and set itself to administer a country where there 
were left only women. 

There, for a true German hero was the occasion 
to show his chivalry! War is war, "Krieg ist 
Krieg," but women and young girls are not so 
very dangerous ! That is what the noble defender 
of the German fatherland thought. He collected 
eight thousand of them, the prettiest, and patting 
them paternally on the check, with a big laugh, 
he sold them to the Turk to be put in a cage and 
to serve for the relaxation of the Pashas of the 
Committee of "Union and Progress," who will 
hand them on no doubt later on to some Kurdish 



226 APPEAL OF THE SERBIAN WOMEN 

soldier of the Guards. That is the gift of Wil- 
helm II to his friends at Constantinople. "Gott 
mit uns !" God is with the honest German people, 
chosen by Him to bring about the reign of mo- 
rality on earth. 

Do you feel, before this crime, the irony of our 
formula of peace.'' Reparations? There are out- 
rages that one cannot repair. Guarantees? Wil- 
helm is playing safe: he knows very well that, 
if we enter Germany, we shall not take eight thou- 
sand little German girls of ten to fourteen years 
old and distribute them among our Senegalese. 
— Maurice de Waleffe in Le Journal. 

It is reported from Bclgrad that the Austrian 
military authorities, on instructions from Ger- 
many, have proceeded to a general rape of 
women and 3'oung girls from ten to fourteen years 
of age, without distinction of situation or of 
family responsibility. Trains crowded with these 
unfortunates, whose protests and supplications 
are stifled by blows, have been passing without 
interruption for four days, going no one knows 
whither. 



APPEAL OF THE SERBIAN WOMEN 227 

Atrocious scenes have taken place in the towns 
and villages when the soldiers came to drag away 
3^oung girls from their families and mothers from 
their children. Women have gone mad, young 
girls have killed themselves to escape the fate 
which awaited them. — Le Temps, July 15th, 1917. 

***** 4ft 

Le Temps of August 8th published a letter 
from one of tliose unhappy Serbian men who were 
obliged by the exactions and the tortures in- 
flicted by the Bulgarian authorities in occupied 
Serbia, to take up arms and attempt to deliver 
their country and to seek in death an end to their 
sufferings. The letter reads as follows; 

May, 1917. 

Here I am in the mountains, my wretched habi- 
tation at this time. I escaped on April 25th from 
the Bulgarian dungeons, where I was incarcerated 
with twenty comrades, after having been captured 

in the revolt near . There were 25,000 of 

us insurgents; we fought first against a German 
division, which we defeated and put to flight; 
then we were attacked bv two Bulgarian divisions. 



228 APPEAL OF THE SERBIAN WOMEN 

with many cannon and machine guns. I was 
taken, put in prison and condemned to be hanged ; 

but at night my friend made his way in 

with a band into Prokouplie, killed the sentinels 
and released me. I was thus able to escape to the 
mountains. 

The Bulgarians have called up all the male 
population from sixteen to sixty-five years, to in- 
corporate them in the Army and send them imme- 
diately to the front. At the same time they col- 
lected all the 3"oung people of thirteen to sixt m 
years and sent tliem to Constantinople. It was 
this vandal act on the part of these monstrous 
Mongols which provoked the revolt. The unhappy 
mothers, exasperated by the cries of their children 
carried off by force, attacked the Bulgarians with 
stones. It was a regular revolt, to which the 
Bulgarians responded by gibbets on which they 
hanged women and children. 

Here I am now in the mountains of . 

It may be that by the time you read these lines 
I shall be no longer among the living, but the 
insurrection cannot be stifled so easily, for the 



I 



APPEAL OF THE SERBIAN WOMEN 229 

Bulgarians arc proceeding to the systematic ex- 
termination of our nation. On the 25th April 
they embarked on the trains at Belotintze 8000 
children of twelve to fifteen years ; destination : 
Constantinople. Many of the children jumped 
from the cars while the trains were moving, and 
thus found death. The Bulgarians called up 
the whole population to be vaccinated. But, in- 
stead of serum against cholera or smallpox, they 
inoculated them wuth contagious diseases. One 
of the doctors made this known to the people, 
who fled to the mountains with the children. — 

From La Serhie, August 19th, 1917. 
Yours very truly, 

(signed) ^^ICc^o. \^-^ ^T^t^v-u^^ 

First Vice-President of the National 
League of Serbian Women, 



Secretaries, 




Member^f xhe CenM*al Committee. 



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